Panic! at the Disco Guerrilla Marketing

On March 8th, alternative pop band Panic! at the Disco launched a guerrilla event marketing campaign to announce and promote their new album, Pray For the Wicked. Rather than making tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts simply announcing the upcoming June release, Panic! started teasing pop up shows, through mostly word of mouth communication and subtle hints.

They kicked things off with a simple Instagram of lead singer, Brendon Urie, brushing his teeth, appearing to get ready for something. Select fans who had previously sent fanmail to the band were sent bottles of 'unholy water' addressed from the band's P.O. box. They also tweeted hints with clocks reading 3:19 and from there, they posted further cryptic messages to social media, before finally giving fans small connecting details: Cleveland, Grog Shop, March 19th, 3pm.

The teaser Instagram Story

Fans showed up to the venue as prompted, and were let into the show after only a limited amount of tickets were sold at the door. This venue would be the smallest public show Panic! at the Disco had played in years. The marquee outside the show didn't read anything about the band playing there, simply, "Worship -insert day of the week here-", a phrase also repeated on flyers handed out at shows, as shown below.

After the first intimate pop-up show, it was revealed that there were going to be more, however, the band still made no official announcements about the shows, instead, they were announced through flyers distributed by women dressed up as nuns at previous pop-up shows, depending upon fans who actually got in to the shows to spread the word on social media, which they did, without needing to be prompted at all. It became almost like a scavenger hunt, with fans dying to know if they would be popping up in their city and if they would be able to get in, stalking the #prayforthewicked hashtag for any new updates on what the band was up to with this campaign.

A flyer given out at a pop-up show, used to inform fans
about the next show

After all the pop up shows (of which there were 8) were played, Panic! at the Disco finally announced not only the name and release date of the upcoming album, but they also dropped TWO singles at once, one with an accompanying music video, which can be viewed below:

The campaign climaxed at last with billboards in Los Angeles and Times Square in New York announcing the upcoming album and accompanying Summer tour. Tickets to the tour went on sale after an exclusive presale for fans who either pre-ordered the album or were signed up for their mailing list, to give dedicated fans a first chance. Following the release of tickets, localized ads were disseminated on Facebook, informing more casual, local fans that Panic! would be playing their city this Summer, which are still popping up for some fans, in cities where the shows have not yet sold out. 

Billboard in Times Square

When a band has been at it for years, they clearly get sick of the usual music marketing tactics and want to try different, fun, new approaches to keep the loyal fans they've had for over ten years still interested in them and their music. Though Panic! at the Disco has been known to do this by shifting music genres between albums, they have clearly taken a new approach with the album promotion this time around, and it was extremely effective for them! They had over 2 million social media impressions as a result of the pop up show campaign and have sold out many dates on their "Pray For the Wicked" tour this summer. This type of campaign not only keeps things new for fans, but also wouldn't be nearly as effective without them, as all of the hype, and even the flow of communication about the pop-up shows would not have been possible without them. Knowing your audience well enough to know they would love this and participate to able to pull something like this off is part of what made this campaign so successful for the band.