Aha! How Recipe recruited Alan Partridge to build Audible's Audience
Recipe won ‘Best Use of LinkedIn’ at The Drum Awards for Social Media in 2021 with its campaign for Audible. Hear, the team shares how it used the new Alan Partridge podcast to drive engagement and get new listeners for Audible.
Creating a LinkedIn profile for the Norwich radio star was the starting point for Recipe's campaign.
To promote his new Audible Podcast, 'From the Oasthouse', we got Alan Partridge to join LinkedIn - a first for this Broadcaster, Newscaster, Sportscaster, Thoughtcaster, Podcaster. As well as building his professional network and occasionally communicating with his contacts, Alan shares pearls of wisdom alongside thought leadership on creativity.
Business Objective: To increase the number of Audible members.
Communications Objective: Deliver relevant reach among our core audience, increasing awareness of Audible’s new Original Podcast and in turn maximizing Free Trial volumes.
Strategy
We knew we had a product that people love and more importantly that people seek out - it's not hyperbole to suggest that Alan Partridge is considered a national treasure. The question then became: How do we promote the new Alan Partridge Audible Original Podcast in a way that feels relevant to the audience, authentic to the character and creates new Audible listeners?
We decided to turn to a platform where we knew we could garner mass engagement and tangible cut through in comparison to the more traditional and expected platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. After all, Alan Partridge is a consummate professional, so he's going to promote his show in the most professional way possible: LinkedIn.
Results
Being on LinkedIn allowed fans to feel like they had a meaningful one-on-one relationship with Alan, with hundreds of DMs to the page containing references to the series. We also averaged over 700,000 earned impressions per day - totaling over 22m - in the month following the release of the podcast and LinkedIn page. We also worked closed with the LinkedIn team to validate and verify his account for any naysayers claiming it wasn't real.
Our stats excelled on the launch day itself with over 40,000 views from a single organic post on his LinkedIn page, demonstrating thinking outside of the box for digital campaigns and placements can yield high impact results.
The LinkedIn activity featured on NME and Shortlist amongst other publications. The campaign delivered real and genuine cut through with major engagement on a social platform not traditionally associated with entertainment brands or marketing campaigns and helped Audible achieve and overdeliver on their objectives. The release of the podcast broke records, becoming the fastest selling Audible Original in the UK ever and it remains a top 10 bestseller in 2021, six months after publication.
This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Social Media. To find out more, including which competitions are currently open for entry, visit The Drum Awards website.
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