The Sensual World - Canada Press Kit

This is easily my favourite version of the press kit for The Sensual World. It's certainly one of the more interesting ones as it gives greater insight into how an album was promoted in the consumer market - something you don't typically find inside of these things. It also comes in the same identical glossy picture folder as the Dutch and UK versions.

Inside the folder are the following:

Marketing Campaign Sheet: This includes a quick overview of the album, plus release and packaging info. There's also a rundown on some of the promotional tools to be used in shops to help push the album in the Canadian market. P.O.P. is an abbreviation for point of purchase, in case anyone was wondering about that.

Artist Profile Sheet: Little bit of a write up on Kate, the album, the marketing plan, as well as suggested retail prices for the album in all of its available forms at the time.

Lyric Sheet: Speaks for itself.

Sales Program: A two page sales program for Kate's back catalogue. The second page has badly xeroxed photos of cassette albums and spaces for inventory/orders.

Promotional Postcard: Also included is a promotional postcard, which I already posted a short while back on the Postcards Blog Page. Measuring 4" x 6" only a few of the press kits received one. Since only a handful of these press kits were made for the Canadian market, there aren't a lot of these postcards out there. It also doesn't appear to have been distributed through any other independent means that I'm aware of as I've never seen this one turn up anywhere else.

Publicity Photos: Two promo photos are also included. This press kit had anywhere from 1-3 photos inside. I already posted these on the Promotional Publicity Photographs Blog Page a little while back. While the photos are pretty familiar to people already, the Canadian version of these publicity photos are on the rare side as they don't tend to turn up very often.

And that's it.



*Most likely this will be my last new post of the year. December tends to be an exhaustively busy month for me, but I will be back sometime in the new year.

The Sensual World - Dutch Press Kit

The Dutch press kit for the Sensual World comes in a picture folder that's identical to the UK press kit. In fact, all versions of this press kit have the same identical picture folder. 

The folder measures 8¾" x 12¼" and has a glossy finish to the surface.

The inside contents of this folder are straight forward and fairly boring. Included is a 4 page press release featuring a biography, a discography and track-listing for the Sensual World. Unfortunately, the entire thing is in Dutch and I don't understand a word of Dutch. If anyone wants to waste their own time translating it - knock yourself out :)

Also included is one publicity photograph, which is clearly a standard UK issued one.

Interestingly enough, from the few other examples I've seen of the Dutch press kit over the years, any publicity photo(s) included tended to be randomly presented in two different configurations. Some had the standard UK issued versions inserted (anywhere from 1-3 photos), while others had regular photos inserted. These regular photos have a thin white border around all four sides, like a frame, but contain no discernible information or markings of any kind anywhere on them. No artist listing or catalogue number, no photography credit or music label logo. Nothing. It's pretty odd.

And that's pretty much it for this one. As I mentioned earlier on, this particular one is pretty boring. In fact, out of the three different versions of this press kit that I own, the Dutch one is easily the most uninteresting one of the lot.

The Sensual World - UK Press Kit

Like many of the UK press kits from back in the day, this one for The Sensual World is pretty rare now and fairly difficult to come by. In fact, I would even say it's near impossible to find.

What makes this particular one especially nice is the unique picture folder it comes in. When I found this back in the early '90s, I was a little more than surprised to see it was still in its original picture folder because these typically got destroyed. Press kits and press packs were generally issued with a folder of some kind. The vast majority of these folders were simple generic record company folders bearing its logo prominently on the front, so when you come across any form of press kit or press pack for sale that doesn't have a folder, it's usually a case where it was destroyed or simply tossed away.

The folder measures 8¾" x 12¼" and has a glossy finish to the surface. The back is just a plain black with the EMI logo at the bottom. This one was pretty difficult to scan because every bit of microscopic space dust shows up on this thing.

Inside the folder is a three page bio/info sheet with a thumbnail sketch on Kate and her career up to that point. I particularly like the added flower motif along the bottom of the first sheet. Press sheets tend to be boring looking as a given, so it's a nice touch.

Also included are five promotional postcards featuring the album artwork on the front and a simple flower design on the back. The flower design is actually much lighter than it appears here. I had to fiddle with the resolution to bring it up more as it wasn't registering at all. I should also point out that not every press kit has these promotional postcards. Some versions have other special inserts included and some have the postcards. It's unknown how many have the postcards and how many have the inserts.

Also included are five promotional publicity photographs. The number of publicity photos inserted inside of each press kit can vary - anywhere from 3-5 in total. There were also quite a few different promo photos used in this press kit, and the distribution of them in each kit appears to be random.

Hounds of Love - USA Promotional Press Kit

The U.S. Press Kit for Hounds of Love comes with a 2 page (4 sided) info/bio sheet, which is almost identical to the UK one – it even has the same London UK address on it, but there are some slight differences if you look closely enough at the two. The UK one can be found right here.

It also comes with four 8 x 10 promotional press photos, which all feature the EMI America logo at the bottom right-hand corner. As you can see, it’s a bit of a mixed bag of photos – some are from the Hounds of Love era and some are older ones. It wasn’t an uncommon practice to do this with press kits, especially in other countries for print media purposes.

Although I’m not certain, I’ve always suspected there might be something missing from this press kit… such as a copy of the album or a folder at the very least. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t surprise me at all because these things did tend to be split up, even trashed altogether.

The Kick Inside - USA Promotional Press Kit

Original USA Promotional Press Kit for The Kick Inside from 1978. It's very scarce these days.

It's issued with an original 1978 USA LP, but with “NOT FOR SALE” imprinted in the top right corner on the front. It’s a little difficult to see because it’s plain imprinting without any colour or faux foil added to the stamp. I've added a cropped scan to show this better.

The distribution information at the bottom of the back sleeve is extra tiny making it nearly impossible to see, so here's a very cropped version.

The record labels have the same Harvest logo as the Canadian release. It also shares the same catalogue number. 

  

Also included in this press kit is a two page (four sided) bio on Kate. The letterhead at the top of the first page is exactly the same as the typeset used on the front of the album sleeve.

Two black and white 8 x 10 promotional press photos were also included.