The xx’s new album campaign truly showcases the power of social networking! On September 3, (which is a week before their album “Coexist” releases) The xx, in collaboration with Internet Explorer, released a stream of their album. Within this stream, you can listen to Coexist in full as well as track your location and share the album with people around the world. What better way to spread your love for The xx and to “coexist”?
The web page features a world map which shows how the stream of The xx’s new album has been shared. The map has several curves shooting out from one end of the world to the next, which originated from someone either tweeting, emailing, or posting a status on Facebook. This campaign is a great way to encourage fans to share the album stream, bring awareness to the album release, and express what they think about the new album. However, I believe that the campaign could have been more interactive and involved.
When I initially went on the site, I got the impression that you could click on each of the curves on the map in order to see precisely where the album has been shared, and from which cities. Along the right side of the page, there is also a “share history” section showing the dates September 3, 2012 (from when the stream became active) through September 11, 2012, which is when the album will be released. Underneath the share history, there is also a bar indicating the current date. I also thought that this feature had another element to it, as I attempted to drag the bar up and down to see if the curves on the map would increase or decrease, which would essentially show the progress of the campaign and the history of all the album shares. However, the bar did not move up and down, which then made me think, “What are they trying to achieve with this data that they are collecting?” They are clearly tracking the history and flow of shares for some purpose. It could perhaps be for market research. The xx could pay attention to which cities had the most “shares,” which can help them plan their future tour dates.
Whatever the reason may be, this campaign is an interesting and unique way to initiate a fast response and form of action from the thousands of fans that The xx has. It also symbolically shows a picturesque view of “coexisting” through the album Coexist. Click HERE to check out the stream!
