How a Clever Marketing Gimmick Helped This Band Get Widespread Recognition
Was taking a £2,000 loss to make an album hit worth it for Richard Branson’s Virgin Records?
Faust are a German rock band that have been playing for over 50 years, starting from 1971. They were relatively unknown in the UK when the British record label, Virgin Records, of Richard Branson had acquired the band.
But time would later prove that it was nothing but the calm before the storm. They were soon to produce a successful album, thanks to a brilliant marketing campaign by the record label.
The Campaign
It’s not a surprise that there are tens of thousands of ways you can get people to buy your product. All it needs is a bit of exposure. Virgin records believed in the band so much that they were ready to buy that exposure by selling their album, The Faust Tapes for the price of a single, which was 49 pence.
Virgin had to take a £2,000 loss because of this gimmick, but that was the price they paid for getting Faust recognized in the British market. People were quick to notice the low price of this album and decided to get their own copies.
The album sold over 60,000 copies, which caused it to reach number 12 in the charts…
