New album releases used to feel like events: people would cross the city to get a record, and the first listen could become a lasting memory. In the streaming era, new music is available in one click, but this convenience also means releases can easily disappear into an endless flow of new content.
Problem
When one of Kazakhstan’s most prominent music acts, Irina Kairatovna, was preparing to release the album XIV, Yandex Kazakhstan saw an opportunity to bring back the feeling of a major event around the release and make the first listen feel special again. The Yandex Music team faced several objectives: - make Irina Kairatovna’s XIV stand out from the constant flow of new music; - connect listeners’ digital behaviour with a valuable offline reward - access to an exclusive premiere; - turn the release into an ecosystem-wide event by bringing together Yandex Kazakhstan services around it; - generate organic reactions from fans, influencers and media, turning a closed premiere for a limited number of guests into a major newsworthy event.
Solution
We focused on the one moment that can never be repeated: the first listen. For XIV, we chose a Listening Party format — a closed pre-release experience held 24 hours before the official launch. The artists shared the stories behind the tracks and experienced the audience’s first reaction in person instead of through streams and comments. But the premiere didn’t live only in Yandex Music. To turn the release into an ecosystem-wide event and take listeners from digital into real life, we activated several Yandex Kazakhstan services at once. Listening Party promotion appeared in Yandex Music and Kinopoisk, as well as across Yandex Go services — Lavka, Food, Afisha, Intercity and Cargo Delivery. The premiere became part of familiar user journeys, from in-app promotion to map placements and messages shown during rides. And in Yandex Go, the journey to the event became literal: with one tap, users could request a ride and go straight to the Listening Party. Tickets could not simply be purchased. Access was connected to fan engagement in Yandex Music through Yandex Plus, the XIV presave, listening to the band’s catalogue and ticket drops.
Results
507 UGC posts. 3.5M UGC reach. 165 influencer publications. 2.7M earned PR reach. 9,200 livestream views. The product component also attracted 3,150 ticket mechanic participants, generated 11,800 presaves and reactivated 4,200 users. 1,700 guests heard XIV 24 hours before the official release - together with Irina Kairatovna. Another 9,200 viewers joined the Listening Party online. Following the release, two XIV tracks entered Kazakhstan’s Top 100, while the band gained an additional 200K monthly listeners during the campaign period.
