From Music Week:
Cure all: Universal Music's Nickie Owen on how The Cure hit the summit across Europe
by Andre Paine
The Cure are celebrating huge success with their comeback album.
Released via Polydor, Songs Of A Lost World opened at No.1 in the UK with sales of 51,362 (Official Charts Company). That was more than the rest of the Top 5 combined.
In our interview last week, Polydor Label Group president Ben Mortimer told Music Week that the public response to Robert Smith’s return has been “overwhelming”.
The Cure’s first album in 16 years has also secured multiple No.1s internationally, including in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Portugal. In addition, there was a No.2 finish in Italy, No.3 in Ireland and New Zealand, No.4 in the US (their best result since 1992) and No.5 in Australia and Norway.
Here, Nickie Owen, president, international marketing at Universal Music UK, reveals the strategy behind the LP’s global impact…
After such a long gap between albums, how did you manage to reach so many fans for this project internationally?
“Robert had revealed the album title over two years ago and a number of the new songs had been played live around the globe in the last few years of touring. This means The Cure’s audience, which is truly global, had been eagerly waiting for Songs Of A Lost World for some time.
“The international campaign, brilliantly led by Ben Alexander and Tafara Mugumbate [international marketing, Universal Music UK] started with OOH billboards teasing the release in many major cities around the world ahead of the official announce, as well as sending bespoke postcards to the band’s biggest fans and supporters in the media in key markets. This again ramped up the anticipation globally.
“There was a fantastic 90-minute filmed interview with Robert that we transcribed and translated, so that we could supply it to media for written press, radio features and TV news – that we strategically drip-fed over the two months leading into release internationally. Their incredible fanbase was ready and waiting for the album announcement and we saw that in the huge pick-up online and in the press when the album was officially announced.”
How has this chart campaign helped re-establish the band with a global audience, particularly as they last released a record before the streaming era had begun?
“To achieve the best chart entries of any album in the band’s discography all over the world not only goes to show the size and fervour of the band’s fanbase, but also reminds everyone of the importance of The Cure in music history.
“The quality of the new album, sales numbers that continue to come, and critical acclaim from some of the biggest media in the world firmly re-establishes them as a global phenomenon that can compete with some of the biggest modern global artists.”
France has long been a strong market where The Cure have toured a lot over the years. What was the scale of the French campaign and what has the response been?
“France is a huge market for the band, so it was of course a very important focus for us from the beginning. With this campaign, we were able to partner with the biggest radio station in the country, France Inter, to have their full support from the start of the campaign, flyaway competitions to the band’s show at the Troxy, OOH billboards, fan listening parties and more. With radio still a big driver in the market, we ran a number of on-air competitions with many other major radio stations, and partnered with Deezer to run a huge campaign including flyaways to London for the Troxy show.
“We also had special The Cure ‘corner store’ pop-ups in the country’s main retailer, FNAC for the album, with a full area dedicated to the band from release last Friday, and screenings for fans of the global live stream at the very moment the album went on sale in the stores. In the end, we had well over 20,000 sales week one in France, well over double the sales of the band’s last album, and their first No.1 album there.”
As well as France, you had multiple No.1s in key European markets. How did you coordinate the campaign in terms of label partners, retail, DSPs and media?
“Unbelievably, The Cure have never had a No.1 album in Europe so to have nine No.1s [in Europe plus the UK] is an incredible result and testament to a brilliant album. The Universal territories were unbelievably excited to have a new Cure record this year. Polydor have been fantastic in delivering plans with DSPs that could be rolled out globally. The roll-out was so well timed that it meant all markets were able to have local conversations with media and retail in advance to set out the best possible campaign, which you can see from the results themselves including over 100,000 global pre-orders on the album.
“The great DSP set-up was also evident in the streaming numbers both on the launch of Alone and the album overall. The YouTube global livestream on the night of release was another brilliant way to highlight the album with many countries hosting events locally and having midnight openings for fans.”
