Social media campaign for new Tom Waits album

The latest Tom Waits album “Bad As Me” (ANTI) has been launched last year with quite a remarkable social media campaign that deserves some credit:

[nggallery id=2]

Here’s the order of events

  • Aug 16, 2011: First announcement of upcoming news on Aug 23 (reminder on Aug 22)
  • Aug 23, 2011: Video clip with Tom Waits announcing new album release on Oct 25, contains snippets of new songs
  • Aug 30, 2011: Title track “Bad as me” free stream; pre-order CD, deluxe CD, LP
  • Sep 27, 2011: Single “Back in the Crowd” available as (paid for) download
  • Oct 04, 2011: Track “Back in the Crowd” free stream
  • Oct 11, 2011: Announcement: Full album for streaming available on Oct 17. Mailing list signup. Reminder on Oct 14 (“the only way you will be able to hear the new album (…) before it is released”)
  • Oct 17, 2011: Full album available for streaming; only available to people on mailing list (who received an invite code by email). People with invite codes can invite 5 friends (see below)
  • Oct 18, 2011: Interview on pitchfork.com
  • Oct 18, 2011: Invites code available until Friday (Oct 21)
  • Oct 21, 2011: “Listen with Friends”: Set of local record stores listening parties (US only)
  • Oct 24, 2011: Album available in stores (CD, deluxe limited edition CD (+3 songs), LP
  • Nov 01, 2011: Interview on npr.org
  • Nov 08, 2011: Video for “Satisfied”
  • Nov 23, 2011: Deluxe limited edition CD “available again”
  • Jan 03, 2012: “Best album of 2011” award by Metacritic
    (Unfortunately, as of today, the album is not yet available for streaming on Spotify.)

Here’s a few more screenshots from the invitations campaign:

[nggallery id=1]

read more