The Kid Cudi Man On The Moon II Campaign was definitely one of my favorites during my time at Universal Motown. The higher up felt confident in letting me run free creatively due to the success I had with Kid Cudi’s debut album and my knowledge of the market we’re trying to reach. So with that being said, here is an overview of some of the good bad and ugly that happened with this project. Enjoy!

Campaign Conditions (Issues Being Faced):
1. The folks in the Radio promo dept have been working Cudi’s lead single “Erase Me” trying to get spins in major markets but they’ve been unsuccessful (Cudi is not a radio artist so we kinda figured that already)
2. Cudi is unavailable for interviews, appearances and promo. (have to figure out a way to promote Cudi without Cudi)
3. Cudi has an incredible amount of energized fans that are very active online (a lot of room to do something creative online)
4. Cudi has a merch store full of cool merch but no one currently knows about it.
5. Cudi only has a MySpace page and Facebook page (he hates Twitter. FML)
6. No Assets except for lead single (no artwork or press photos)
7. Official release date is November 9, 2010

So while facing these conditions I had to create a social media campaign that would promote Cudi’s lead single & album, promote the merch store and grow Cudi’s fan base online for the release of “Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager”.

PHASE ONE (Single Release):

Online Campaign Goals:
1. Promote Kid Cudi’s new single “Erase Me” (wasn’t getting any radio play so the internet was its only outlet)
2. increase Kid Cudi’s Facebook fans by 50%
3. Drive traffic to the Kid merch store for fans to purchase items
4. and finally i wanted to catch the attention of the people at G.O.O.D. Music (personal goal)

The Execution:
1. Created a “Erase Me” Video Contest for Cudi’s lead single “Erase Me” hosted on Facebook amongst Cudi’s 1.5 million FB fans. Grand Prize = $1000. User with the most FB Likes wins.
2. Daily post of engaging content including giveaways, cudi facts, and new video/music.
3. Created a Facebook tab for the Cudi merch store and had giveaways to drive traffic
4. Promoted the “Erase Me ” video contest on popular music sites that Cudi fans visit on the regular.

The Outcome:
1. More than 150 user created videos. Over 500,000 total views. Over 100,000 engaged fans waiting for the official video.
2. The amount of Cudi FB fans currently stands at 2.4 million (well over a 50% increase)
3. Soldout of every item in the merch store within 3 weeks
4. multiple tweets from G.O.O.D. Musc staff trying to figure out who started it all

PHASE TWO (Album Release):

Online Campaign Goals:
1. Promote the release date of Kid Cudi’s sophomore album “Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager”
2. Increase Kid Cudi’s Facebook fans
3. Continue to drive traffic to Cudi’s merch store for fans to pre-order his sophomore album

The Execution:

1. Created the Mr. Rager Tagging campaign that encouraged fans to tag “Mr. Rager” across their city. Fans could then upload a photo of there tag and the person with the most likes won a Kid Cudi fan package.
2. Created a like campaign where we debuted exclusive Cudi content on a weekly basis that only fans of Cudi’s Facebook page could see.
3. Created a giveaway campaign with popular blogs within Cudi’s demographic (Complex, RapRadar, etc.) where fans would win items by finding hidden clues in the mercy store

The Outcome:

1. Over 1,000 users, over 15,000 likes and a countless amount of energized fan waiting for the November 9th release that ended up selling 170,000 units its first week with no radio play and no tour supporting the album.
2. Facebook fans jumped from 2.4 million to 3.2 million
3. Sold over 10,000 pre-sale albums thru the merch store (the most ever for an artist under the Universal umbrella)

PHASE THREE (Album Support):

Online Campaign Goals:
1. Keep the momentum going after the release of the album by keeping current fans engaged while creating new fans at the same time

The Execution:
1. Created a Facebook Campaign called Caught Raging where users posted photos of them raging (partyng, acting crazy, etc.)

The Outcome:
1. One of our most successful campaigns yet. Over 1,000 followers and over 1,000,000 photo gallery views.

Lessons Learned
1.The formula (CwF+RtB=$$$). works