This Week On The Desk
Behind The Campaign: Fred Again 📰
Signings ✍🏾 - DJ Spinall
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨 - Don Mills
Links 🔗 - Mid-Year Music Report
Behind The Campaign: Fred Again
Artist: Fred Again | Labels: Atlantic Records UK
Single: Actual Life 3
Team members
Promised Land Music - Alex Gibson - Management
Goodlife Management - Ellie Shaw, Oliver Sasse, Fabia Jones Russell, David Watters, Harry Franklin - Management
Lucy Hickling - Creative Director
Four Four Digital, Scott Dillon - Digital/social media
Briony Turner, Joe Barbe - A&R Atlantic Records UK
Tristan Parsons - Head of Dance Marketing Atlantic Records UK
Luke Tipping - Creative Director Atlantic Records UK
Fiona McAuley - Head Of Audience Atlantic Records UK
Cameron Stanton - Head Of Streaming Atlantic Records UK
Thomas Shannon - International Marketing Atlantic Records UK
Claire Coster - Head of Press Atlantic Records UK
Gwen Thomas - Marketing Assistant Atlantic Records UK
Jodie Luckie and Ruth Drake, Toast - PressÂ
Levellr - Community ManagementÂ
Benchmob - TikTok & Digital Consultancy - Marketing
Four Four Digital - Scott Dillon - Marketing
Levellr – Tom Gayner, Ben Barber Smith - Marketing
Benchmob - Jahan Karimaghayi, Keith Walsky - Marketing
Overview of Campaign
Fred again.. had a crazy run, with a viral Boiler Room set, viral TikTok sound “Turn On The Lights again..”, and jam-packed EU and US festivals, including unmissable sets at Primavera and All Points East. All of this, plus the success of post-lockdown anthem Marea (we’ve lost dancing) and previously released Actual Life albums, laid ample foundations for an incredible album campaign and live strategy for Fred in 2022.
Given the mass audience growth, their goal was to engage and educate new and casual fans on the Actual Life process, whilst also maintaining cult-like super- fans.
For the former, they focused on a series of “process” videos; these showcase how Fred works with found sample sources and builds a world from them, resulting in a new piece of music and a story to accompany it. They seeded these out through TikTok and Instagram, on Fred’s channels, and via third-party creators, targeting audience tribes, identified from their journey to discovering Fred, and tailoring content as relevant.
They worked closely with artists sampled on the album to share their story and produce their own content.
They focused on building a community for super-fans to share their fandom, engage with each other and with Fred. They worked with Levellr and FourFour Digital to build and run Fred’s Discord server. Fred engaged with “shoot-outs” for fan input and Q&As, helping to cement the server as the place to be a super-fan.
The power of community became most evident the week before release. Fred announced he left the album at his favorite London pub and, at a few hours notice, hundreds of fans descended to hear it for the first time. The Discord community then organized their own pre-release playbacks around the world. A phenomenal 18 playbacks took place.
The night before release, Fred told the community he would lead a bike ride to play the album. Fred arrived at Marble Arch to find a group of hundreds of fans on bikes. Fred led a cycle round the park, eventually pausing at Wellington Arch for a rave. Fan and crew content merged to create the official video for Clara, which was released on Fred’s YouTube channel.
Results & key learnings
Actual Life 3 finished #4 in UK albums chart (+189 places from where Actual Life charted)
312% increase in Instagram followers
4,567% increase in YouTube subscribers
1,283% increase in TikTok followers
33k TikTok creations on Turn On The Lights again.. Sound
Three sellout Brixton Academy shows (7th-9th December 2022)
12k Discord server members
Campaign Breakdown
Campaign budget: $65,000+
Audience Demographic: Age 18-24, 25-34
Location: Global
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Signings ✍
SPINALL signed a record deal with Epic Records.
DJ Spinall signed with Epic Records for records.
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨
Don Mills - Producer | Instagram
Links 🔗
2023 Luminate Mid-Year Music Report
#WhoeverNeedsToHearThis
If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
