Just a few weeks ago, we dove into The Stage, an album released by Avenged Sevenfold (A7x) in 2016.
From a marketing perspective, where we treat a band as a brand and an album as a product, this was a unique, non-traditional album release because it was released without much promotion.
Lets briefly re-visit some of our findings:
Pre-release
1. The band gave a fake album name and release date a few days before they released The Stage.
This had fans talking about the new album without having to disclose further details.
2. A week before The Stage was released, A7x announced a special live streamed event on October 27th, 2016, the same date that the album was released.
As thousands watched the live streamed performance, Avenged Sevenfold was scheduled to secretly release the full album right after the show.
Post-release
1. A7x transformed The Stage into The Stage Experience. Throughout 2017, the band released seven songs that were digitally added to the original set of songs.
2. A7x went on The Stage World Tour to promote their new album, playing over 85 shows between 2017 and 2018.
Data Recap
Social mention showed us that, the more specific we get with searches related to The Stage, the more results come up.
This shows that there is a following for The Stage with the keyword thestageworldtour.
It is interesting to point out that the search today differs from when we first searched it a few weeks ago.
We used Google Trends to see how some of the seven additional songs did in terms of interest over time.
This time, lets include two additional songs: Runaway and As Tears Go By.
Each individual song generated interest over time, and interest was stronger on the day they were respectively released.
Dose, the only original song out of the seven, was the only song to reach a score of 100 in terms of interest over time.
The Stage Experience using SWOT
Lets put the pieces together. Did the non-traditional release of The Stage live to its standards?
Strength
Although the album was released by surprise, fans all over were talking about it quickly.
Rather than having smaller conversations over a period of time, such as by releasing three singles before the full album was released, it feels like the community and conversation exploded when the album was released out of nowhere.
Li and Bernoff argue that brands that create and nurture their communities are successful because it makes us feel like there is something in common.
A7x had this to their advantage. Over the years, they have developed a dedicated fan base across the world and their own online community.
The fact that The Stage reached a score of 100 in terms of interest over time on the date it was released is not a surprise: the community was already established, so energizing came naturally.
Weakness
While many fans talked about the surprise release, it also took some time for others to realize that there was a new album out.
Putting things in perspective, this was the first Avenged Sevenfold album in six years to not reach the US Top 200 Billboard.
Li and Bernoff indicate that organizations need to prepare for a transformation, especially when it comes to interacting with social media and the whole groundswell.
Changes take time so it is important to "first, smart small".
Avenged Sevenfold maintained a low-profile on social media prior to The Stage.
This switch from a traditional approach to a non-traditional approach was not a small step.
This helps understand why the community might have not been fully aware of it.
Opportunity
The non-conventional release of The Stage helped truly put A7x on the social media radar.
Their ability to add to the album throughout 2017 not only gave them room in terms of creativity, but further exposure of The Stage and The Stage Experience.
The band now is very active on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, which was not the case prior to the release of The Stage.
This is what M. Shadows, singer of Avenged Sevenfold, sees as an opportunity in the context of The Stage Experience:
"I think we are just taking advantage of the technology that is out there...the cool thing about being alive in 2017 is that you can literally put music out as soon and as frequently as you want to".
Li and Bernoff believe in the importance of talking with the groundswell by engaging in social networks, posting videos, and creating a community.
Listening is not enough, it is important to talk back and engage.
Avenged Sevenfold used The Stage Experience as a key to open the door to a transformation. This non-traditional release gave them the opportunity to truly become involved in social media.
Threat
As we can appreciate from these two snapshots from Facebook and Instagram, The Stage Experience was not everyone's cup of tea.
Many fans, even after The Stage was released, were confused about what A7x was doing on social media.
Others did not really enjoy the cover songs that were added to the album, or the fact that the band focused on digital releases rather than the more traditional physical release.
Li and Bernoff point out that the implementation of a social strategy is difficult.
Things such as a lack of understanding of people's tendencies and effective technology implementation can be quite challenging.
While this was not fully the case with The Stage Experience, it is true that many fans were not that excited about Avenged's new preference towards digital releases and others did not quite understand what the band was doing.
Final remarks
With its advantages and disadvantages, The Stage Experience was a revolutionary marketing approach in the heavy metal world.
In a world where music streaming services seem to be taking over, we should only expect that A7x will continue to explore this social-media-based approach to release new material.
Based on this understanding of The Stage and The Stage Experience as a whole, here are some final recommendations:
1. Understand both sides. While A7x did provide physical copies of the album when it was released, this did not seem to be as explicit as the digital release. In the future, it would be interesting to see a marketing campaign that is able to effectively balance the physical and digital releases of a new album while maintaining that surprise element.
2. Fully submerge. The band has come a long way since The Stage was released in terms of their growth in social media. However, at the same time, we can still see that many comments across their platforms remain unanswered. As illustrated by Li and Bernoff, engaging is the step after listening and talking. I believe that the band would benefit tremendously by spending more time responding to their fans within different posts.
3. Patience, Young Padawan. As noted by Li and Bernoff and even the singer of A7x, transformations take time. Fans adapt to change in different ways.
With this in mind, A7x should continue to explore and innovate within the groundswell-based framework they have crafted with The Stage Experience.
New Album?
Just a few days ago, the band commented:
"We have a couple things we're looking at, but right now we're still dealing with the label situation, the lawsuit [with Warner Bros. ], so we've still got a couple of things we have to clean up before we move on to the next record. For us right now we're going to do [the tour]], and by the time we get to September, we're either going to South America or we're not, and if we don't, then we'll start thinking about the next record."
When will the next record come out? How will it sound?
In the spirit of our discussion, will A7x take another non-traditional marketing approach?
We will see.
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