This Week On The Desk
Behind The Campaign: Little Simz 📰
Signings ✍🏾 - Kelela
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨 - Tyler Serebreni
Links 🔗 - Killer Mike, Future, Andre 3000, Eryn Allen Kane
Behind The Campaign: Little Simz
Artist: Little Simz | Labels: AWAL
Album: Sometimes I’m A Introvert
Team members
AWAL: Stephanie Achigbu, Helen Barrass, Jen Ewbank, Lisa Young In
External Agencies/Companies: Robert Swerdlow & Emma Powell – Artist Management at Starwood Management
Social Media: Tilla Arcé
Creative Director: Jeremy Cole
PR: Keong Woo & Chris Cuff – (national press) Good Machine
PR: Rachel Campbell – (online press) Wired PR
PR: Mikey Lloyd – (radio plugger) Plugged In PR
PR: Melle Brown – (community radio) Melody PR
TV Plugger: Andrea Edmondson
Label Manager: Foske Sarah Brown – Proper Music Distribution
Director of Merchandise: Paul Entwistle – Kontraband
Overview of Campaign
After the critically acclaimed album Grey Area in 2019, the teams wanted to build upon Little Simz’s story so far, solidifying her 10-year journey as the modern blueprint of British hip-hop with her new album “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert”.
Some of the key objectives included:
• Utilize all channels to re-engage and expand fanbase, drive visibility and narrate the story of the album
• Reaffirm Little Simz’s position as the best lyricist to emerge out of the UK through a solid press and promo strategy
• Build a pre-order strategy that sets up the campaign for the highest new entry on release week
• Engage key audience segments to create a campaign worthy of a #1 record and global recognition
The team built a strong D2C and pre-order strategy which launched from album announcement – maximizing physical (six separate vinyl formats in partnership with various retail stores), signed copies, D2C bundles, and a pre-save and pre-add campaign on Spotify and Apple.
The team created impactful content that engaged with Little Simz’s existing fanbase and acquired new fans through increased visibility. They launched Little Simz on TikTok for the first time, utilizing the platform as a key channel for audience growth.
After only a few weeks, Simz had acquired over 100k followers. This growth was accelerated when the previous album track ‘Venom’ went viral on the platform. The sound has now been used over 660k times and was picked up by fans and influencers alike, with Simbi posting responses to the best videos via her own profile. The best performing response post racked up over 21m views and almost 6m likes.
The team followed up this activity with another fan and influencer campaign around the next single, ‘Woman’. Kicked off by Simz herself and keeping the focus on female empowerment, the aim was to highlight strong women and sisterhood, and spread love for women all over TikTok, which turned out to be successful. For the third single, ‘Rollin Stone’, Simbi then came up with her own TikTok dance around a key drop in the song. This dance choreography has now even been incorporated in Simz’s live set.
Alongside this social activity, they sent out regular newsletters promoting all different vinyl formats, released an exclusive limited gold USB stick, and also arranged a CD and iTunes download price drop to £5 during release weeks. This strategy – combined with other impactful activities – helped secure a #5 album chart position for Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (with 75% of the sales being physical), and the album charting at #1 in the UK Independent Record Store charts.
Results & Key Learnings
• UK #4 album w/ 10,000+ sales (75% physical)
• #1 album in the UK Independent Record Store Charts
• 4.5m monthly Spotify listeners week Of release
TikTok Stats (4th November 2021)
• Followers: 560.2k • Post likes: 10.2m • Posts using ‘Venom’ sound: 660k+
• Posts using ‘Woman’ sound: 2.2k+
Social Growth from 1st April (start of album campaign) to 4th November 2021:
• Spotify followers: 464,071 (+50%)
• YouTube subscribers: 276,000 (+63%) • Instagram followers: 445,911 (+60%)
• Twitter followers: 94,180 (+33%)
• Facebook fans: 122,022 (+40.5%)
Campaign budget £50,001+
Audience demographic Age 19-24, 25-34, 35-44
Location Not given
Signings ✍
Kelela signs with ATC Management
Kelela signed with Fabienne Leys of ATC Management for management.
Creative($) of the week 👩🏽🎨
Tyler Serebreni - Creative Director | Instagram
Links 🔗
#WhoeverNeedsToHearThis
People who believe in your potential even when you doubt yourself should be protected at all costs.
