#19.4.23

thekylestevens: I became a fan of @Louis_Tomlinson after getting the opportunity to photograph his performance in NYC back in the summer. [19.4.23]

MUSICALLY | 19 APRIL 2023

Former One Direction star Louis Tomlinson released his debut album in 2020 through Sony but moved to BMG for his second album, Faith In The Future, in November 2022. Lisa Wilkinson, director of UK marketing (new recordings) at BMG, explains how they looked to reposition him in the market, what learnings were coming from his live success as well as his own festival, why his merchandise strategy directly informed his multi-formatted record release strategy, how they were able to build him without mass radio support, where a wider male audience was targeted this time round, why Twitter remains his most powerful social media platform and how a highly vocal and engaged fanbase was nurtured further and directly involved in the campaign.

Lisa Wilkinson, director of UK marketing (new recordings) at BMG, explains how they looked to reposition him in the market, what learnings were coming from his live success as well as his own festival, and more.

[The article will be broken into sections, linked below.]

1. Coming to BMG for his second solo album

2. The centrality of merchandise

3. The radio conundrum

4. Targeting a male audience

5. Building his songwriting profile

6. Targeting the press

7. Boosting the digital strategy

8. QR code and interactive community map at his Away From Home festival

9. Twitter as his main platform and setting him up on TikTok

10. Chart battle with Bruce Springsteen and the power of in-stores

11. Stationhead and Tim’s Twitter Listening Party

12. Fan-made Spotify Canvases

13. Documentary and the next steps

☆彡

1. COMING TO BMG FOR HIS SECOND SOLO ALBUM

This is his first album with BMG. His debut album, Walls in 2020, was with Syco Music [via Sony]. That was off the back of X Factor with Simon Cowell.

He had done a couple of more commercial singles – one with Steve Aoki [‘Just Hold On’] and one with Bebe Rexha and Digital Farm Animals [‘Back To You’]. They were really successful streaming singles, but that’s not who Louis is. For the boys in One Direction, the ones that have been successful and the songs that have been successful are the ones that have stayed super pop and commercial. Louis did that but it’s just not who he is.

I think he felt, in that structure, that he just wasn’t getting the support to be who he wanted to be. That’s exactly why people come to us. It’s an artist services deal and we’re there to support you and advise you.

You can see from his live business and his merchandise business – and every other thing that Louis does – that there is an incredible fanbase there for him.

When they [Syco] released Walls, they achieved 14,000 units in week one and got to number 4 in Q1 in January 2020. We thought that just didn’t feel reflective of what was happening [around him].

We went and saw him at various venues on his world tour. We went to New York and saw those two shows and we went to Italy and watched his Milan stadium show in front of 30,000 people.

You’re looking and you’re thinking, “Those numbers don’t make any sense. How on Earth did you fumble that?” We were confident that we could do better than that.

He had a signing dinner in October 2021 and then his world tour started in February 2000, which was the delayed tour [due to the pandemic]. It went all the way through to September, pretty much nonstop.

They sold half a million tickets that year. All the while he’s on tour, he’s still making the album.

‘Out Of My System’ was released as a DSP-focused track before the album. It’s the rockiest and heaviest track on the album. He came straight off stage, went into a vocal booth off the side of the stage [to record it]. Because of the energy, he was so fired up. It was a difficult process because it was creating an album on the road.

He wanted to make an album for live. It was a totally different experience for him. Covid hit just a few months after Walls dropped so the tour was out of the question.

Before we started working on the album campaign, he did a show at Crystal Palace Bowl, which was the first incarnation of his Away From Home festival that he’s created and curated, which is for up-and-coming indie bands.

He gave away 8,000 tickets in August 2021 when we could start doing outdoor things again. I was there and was thinking, “There’s something big going on here.” The fans were so committed and dedicated.

Considering this is someone who hasn’t had real radio support or is seen in celebrity magazines or on social posts, this is a huge phenomenon.

MUSICALLY | 19 Apr 2023

3. The radio conundrum

We have seen historically that it has been tricky to get radio for him – but not because of any artist proposition issue. It’s just sonically that he wants to do something different to what radio wants to play.

It’s tricky because it falls through the gaps a little bit with what he wants to do. We’ve always looked at it as: let’s just assume there are zero promo opportunities at radio, TV and press. Let’s just take out promo entirely.

What you have got is a global, engaged, fanatical fanbase. You can do more with that than you can with those other things if you don’t have fans.

I would much rather have an artist who’s got an absolutely berserk global fanbase and that gets absolutely no support from traditional media – because you can work with that – than have an artist that’s not really got a particularly big fanbase but radio loves them and TV loves them. What does that matter if you’ve not got the fans?

We did always want to get promo because we would love to be able to expand Louis’ fanbase. But you’ve got to compete against Harry [Styles] and Niall [Horan]. They’re the first people you’ve got to compete against because, to play three One Direction members on the radio, I don’t know if radio stations would. Then you’ve got the sonic battle as well where he wants to keep it pretty raw.

The first single was ‘Bigger Than Me’, which is a big song to sing. It was a good bridge between the last album and this album. It gave the fans what they wanted.

We had really good feedback from radio. They played it to Clara [Amfo, Radio 1] without telling her who it was. She loved it and she did actually play it as one of the hottest tracks of the week. Greg James’s producers said it was brilliant. They absolutely adored it. Matt Edmondson and Mollie King’s team loved it. They thought it was great. But it got blocked at playlist conversations. It was like, Come on!

That was really disappointing because, pre-release, we were getting incredible feedback from producers, but we just couldn’t get it through the playlisting. We’d always planned for it not to go on radio, but if it got on radio that’d be just a brilliant bonus. So it didn’t harm our campaign strategy at all.

He’s too pop for indie stations and he’s too indie for the BBC [Radio 1]. It’s frustrating, but he’s making the music he wants to make and the fans love it. So what do you do?

‘Silver Tongues’ came out just before the album dropped, which was the official second single. That bridged the gap between those two singles. It was much more guitar based. It was up-tempo but it wasn’t too indie.

On the day that the album was released, fans bombarded Greg’s show on the 10 Minute Takeover [on the Radio 1 breakfast show]. And he played it! It was lovely but you could tell it was done like, “OK, I’ve done it now. Go away.” Which is just so sad because his demographic is right in that lane. It’s 18-25.