Recent Highlights: Q3 2023
It’s been another busy period of creative D2C campaigns, anniversary reissues and new store launches.
Here’s a selection of interesting activity across the platform including Sampha, Dizzee Rascal, Blonde Redhead, Shygirl, CASISDEAD, FatCat, Ed Banger, The Shins, Bar Italia, Ezra Collective, Editors, Yussef Dayes, and The 1975
Sampha
Sampha announced his new album Lahai in August with a pre-order incentive, where fans who pre-ordered the album received a link to gain early access to presale tickets for his Satellite Business shows.
On his artist store, standard formats for sale included a deluxe clear vinyl that came with a bonus 12” which sold out fast, and various Lahai merch items that were offered as bundles with the album.
Meanwhile over on the Young store, additional format variants were offered including a limited Spotify Fans First edition.
Dizzee Rascal
To celebrate 20 years of Boy In Da Corner, a new website boyindacorner.com was launched to sell an incredible deluxe edition reissue, featuring rare and unreleased material and exclusive BIDC20 merchandise.
Creative merch items included a herb tray, grinder and even a limited edition umbrella. Merch bundles also included signed versions of the album.
Blonde Redhead
Blonde Redhead put out their first album in nine years, their first on Section1 titled “Sit Down For Dinner”. The album name seems to have inspired a unique and interesting D2C campaign.
Dinner has long been a sacred ritual for Blonde Redhead; when they're on tour or rehearsing, they always share a meal, no matter what. So to celebrate the release of their new album, the band hosted dinner parties in LA, New York, London and Paris.
A limited number of seats at each dinner were available as part of a vinyl + dinner bundle via the Section1 store.
A Spotify Fans First signed LP also gave a nice boost to sales during the campaign.
Shygirl Coochie Plushie
Shygirl made 100 limited edition “coochie plushies” and put them on sale exclusively to fans who signed up to the Shygirl mailing list via a hidden link.
The plushies did not feature on the store, fans had to sign up before 4pm on 24th August to be emailed a link and be in with a chance of purchasing a coochie plushie for £50.
Another example of a really creative approach to both product offering and marketing.
CASISDEAD
CASISDEAD launched his website on Ochre in time for the long-awaited debut album announcement, released via XL Recordings.
A special edition hand-stamped white label, limited edition clear vinyl, cd and cassette of “Famous Last Words”, as well as “The Number 23” mixtape (available for the first time on vinyl), along with merchandise created an effective bundling strategy.
As well as music formats bundled, CASISDEAD offered tickets for his Koko show bundled with a choice of either the new album or merch.
FatCat
In September FatCat pushed a new label store powered by Ochre live, the store has been nicely integrated into a brand new website which launched on the same day.
A 20% discount off all releases was being offered across the new store, which includes back catalogue, pre-orders, new releases, re-issues and lathe-cut vinyl across their various imprints.
We’re excited to have launched another great independent label store on the platform.
Ed Banger Club Classics Vol.2
To celebrate its 20th birthday, Ed Banger Records decided to highlight four cult and hard to find 12’’ from their early years.
Reissued for the first time as crystal clear vinyl in a four vinyl boxset, exclusive to the official store and Bandcamp and limited to 1000 copies.
Ed Banger Club Classics, Vol. 2 includes: Cassius “I <3 U SO”, DJ Mehdi “Pocket Piano”, SebastiAn “Motor Momy Army” and Myd “All Inclusive”.
The Shins
Another anniversary reissue, this time from Sub Pop for the 20th anniversary of “Chutes Too Narrow” by The Shins.
Remastered by Adam Ayan, under the watchful eye of the band’s prime mover/singer-songwriter James Mercer, this special release available on Sub Pop’s Ochre store features a lovely new, custom die-cut cover for the CD and vinyl formats of the album.
Bar Italia
It’s been a busy few months for London based Bar Italia, who chose the Ochre platform to run their D2C webstore with a minimalist store design, limited merch drops and sought after vinyl.
Meanwhile Matador launched a pre-order for their upcoming new album The Twits over on their label store.
Ezra Collective
Congratulations to Ezra Collective on their 2023 Mercury Prize win for the album “Where I'm Meant To Be”.
Bag your copy from the Ezra Collective store, or Partisan Records store.
Editors
Editors reissued “The Back Room”, pressed on limited 1LP clear vinyl as part of the [PIAS] 40 vinyl campaign.
‘The Back Room’ is the debut, Mercury-nominated album from Editors, released originally in July 2005. The album reached No. 2 in the UK album chart and has amassed over 1 million sales worldwide and includes the Top 10 single ‘Munich’ plus singles ‘Bullets’, ‘Blood’ and ‘All Sparks’.
Available on both the Editors store and PIAS store
Yussef Dayes
Yussef Dayes had a great campaign featuring premium box sets. Fans could pre-order box sets with crushed emerald felt lining, which included embossed gatefold edition double tri-colour splatter vinyl, signed insert, limited edition black classical music branded promark drum sticks and branded afro comb.
The 1975 Zine
Dirty Hit put on sale a limited number of The 1975’s tour zine ”At Their Very Best” and as you’d expect, they flew out.
There were two editions; a 56 page photo book shot over the 2023 UK & Ireland tour and a 64 page photo book shot over the 2022 North American tour, both by Jordan Curtis-Hughes.
