Placebo New Album Campaign Hits The Spot Across Europe

One week after release, Placebo's sixth studio album, ‘Battle For The Sun’, is off to a flying start, surpassing expectations around Europe with a band energised, re-vitalised and keen to build over the campaign ahead.An innovative, Europe wide campaign saw the record streamed to 150,000 fans in the week prior to release and saw the album go straight to number one in the official Belgian charts after only two days of registered sales.After storming into the top ten in the UK on Sunday night, the album now looks set to enter domestic charts at the coveted #1 spot in Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland later this week. The band is also looking to hit the top five for the first time in Holland and Italy and in Sweden the band could have their first ever top 10 album chart entry at no. 9.‘Battle For The Sun’ has already shipped close to half a million units worldwide and is set to be certified Gold week of release in France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. Last Wednesday, the album had attained the top-spot on iTunes in France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland Portugal and Luxembourg.This represents a major coup for the band, who after almost 15 years, continue to sell out stadiums worldwide and are set to play 25 major festivals this summer, most appearances as Headliners or co-Headliners, more than any other UK act.After a gruelling few years touring their 2006 album Meds, Placebo have returned with a bang - a new line-up, a new home and a label structure suited to the times.After 13 years within a major label system, the new campaign began when Placebo and Riverman Management chose [PIAS] Entertainment Group to be their European partners for structured campaign architecture and marketing for the new record across Europe (managed in the UK by [PIAS] UK’s marketing arm, Integral). The nature of the deal has allowed the team to be innovative in their approach and reach out to the fans who have kept Placebo at the top of the tree over the past decade.Edwin Schroter, international director of [PIAS] Entertainment Group, said: “Placebo is a band with a very strong and loyal following and ‘Battle For The Sun’ is a record that we always believed would win them a lot of new fans around the world. The long term plan for the release has been developed over a long period of time and was tailor-made territory by territory to cater for both the markets where Placebo are a massive chart topping band already as well as the markets where a lot of new ground had to be covered to build the kind of profile the band has in their biggest markets.“The first chart results definitely show that this plan is working with some of the best chart entries the band has had so far including what is looking to be their first ever number 1 album in Germany, one of their biggest markets. This definitely is the result of great teamwork by the band, their management and the global and local teams executing a strong, long term strategy.”Central to this re-connection with the fanbase has been the focus on the band's all-new website as the oracle used to reach out on the new campaign. The interactive fan-friendly campaign included debuting the album to the world via an exclusive secure VIP listening party on Placeboworld.co.uk. On 29 May, Placebo fans were emailed with an exclusive access code to listen to the band’s new record ‘Battle for the Sun’, and were able to log-in and listen to the album in its entirety five times each before the stream finished on 31 May. In that time, more than 140,000 people were invited.With only a small database carried over from their previous label set up the Placebo team put in tireless work to rebuild and nurture fan connections. Putting the fans first to hear important news such as single announcements, free downloads, videos, up-to-date album news and finally, the exclusive album stream, has seen that figure rocket to over 150,000 and counting.   Importantly, the approach has paid dividends: having managed to successfully prevent a leak of the album throughout the build up to the listening party, the initiative was a true worldwide premiere.Placeboworld.co.uk has been the hub of the campaign’s activity, it was the only place that offered a legally free download of the album’s title track ‘Battle for the Sun’ – available immediately after the track had its World Premiere as ‘hottest record in the world’ on Zane Lowe’s Radio One (UK) radio show.Continuing the innovative approach, the band’s first full single from the album, ‘For What It’s Worth’ was made available for sale within moments of its first play on the UK’s Radio One in May, allowing fans a legitimate avenue to purchase the music.  Similarly eschewing a front-loaded short term approach to the singles market has allowed the focus of the campaign to be on driving to the full album release.The band will embark on a full arena tour in the autumn to support the release and tickets are already selling at a rate that bucks current trends. It seems after 15 years and six studio albums, appetite for Placebo remains ravenous.Download the full PDF of this release from here.Download a hi-res image of the band from here.