Praenuntius Reigns: The Album's Release and Chart Performance
Greetings readers, metalheads, and anyone here by mistake. This is the final post on this blog, as it wraps up Vulvodynia's months-long campaign by revealing its outcome and effect on their new album's release. After this post, everything will cease, as the story will have concluded and all the info I could possibly share about this band will have been told. Thank you for following this blog during its own journey, and I sincerely hope you at least found it to be...unique, let's say. With this being said, onto what truly matters: RELEASE DAY!
September 17 had finally arrived, and Praenuntius Infiniti was at last unleashed upon the world. Vulvodynia had nothing but gratitude for all those who made the album possible, from the fans to the personnel who helped produce the record and, of course, Bob the Butcher for being the greatest mascot a band can have (and for finally returning to the album cover for release day).
Vulvodynia first celebrated this momentous occasion with a live listening party streamed on Unique Leader Records' Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. The event featured the band themselves along with several contributors to the album.
The very next day, Vulvodynia shared the astounding initial chart positions for Praenuntius Infiniti on iTunes. The album topped the death metal charts in several countries and placed extremely high on comprehensive genre charts for such brutally heavy music, cementing it as their biggest release yet.
Praenuntius Infiniti maintained its reign on the death metal charts, both for iTunes and Apple Music streaming, for three days!
Make that four days, as Bob's Facebook page shared the following day. The post was accompanied by a...truly bizarre image that Bob justified as a "painting that depicts what the last few days have felt like", since Praenuntius Infiniti's success "is so unreal that it feels like [he's] dreaming." I apologize for any nightmares the next image will give you.
If you're wondering how Bob took up painting in between bouts of butchering and interdimensional portal gun travel, he revealed his artistic alter ego the same day: Bob the Butcher Ross.
Uh, moving on, Praenuntius Infiniti was also garnering huge numbers on Spotify, racking up over half a million streams after four days!
The band also made sure to give back to the fans who made the album so immensely popular, first by revealing the winner of the Nintendo Switch giveaway they held earlier.
Next, they announced another round of merch from Pincore (remember the Bob the Butcher ones they made before?), exclusively themed to the new album.
Then, the band shared a detailed step-by-step design progression for Praenuntius Infiniti's album art, showing how it went from an MS Paint sketch by frontman Duncan Bentley to the final version by Daemorph Art.
Last but not least, Vulvodynia announced the music video for the track "A Cosmic Betrayal", which, according to an earlier inquiry, is the fan favorite from the album.
All the months of promotion, marketing, memes, album cover edits, and assorted social media wackiness had paid off in ways the band could never have expected. A small extreme metal band from South Africa became internet sensations thanks to a silly narrative involving a disfigured, portly butcher with a portal gun and sense of adventure, garnering a multitude of new fans and seeing their biggest album release yet.
Giveaways and contests helped incentivize preorders and word-of-mouth, interactions with other bands created vast cross-promotional opportunities, and Vulvodynia was able to succeed in the midst of a global pandemic, a time when musicians from all genres were struggling.
With this, we come to the end of this blog and the end of the band's Bob the Butcher marketing scheme. Don't worry, his page still posts regular updates, memes, and is currently depicting him "joining" Vulvodynia on their 2022 North American tour, so the man isn't going anywhere.
Thank you to everyone who read through, kept up with, or just casually checked out this blog. This was hands-down the most fun I've had in a marketing class, and I still can't believe I managed to use my love for heavy metal for a college assignment. The end of this journey might be bittersweet, but I'm still left as happy as Bob when Praenuntius Infiniti was finally released:
Thank you.