Over the last decade, Grammy-nominated producer and DJ TOKiMONSTA has made her mark not only on electronic music but also pop culture at large. The Los-Angeles based artist released her fourth studio album, Oasis Nocturno, through Ingrooves Music Group on 20th March 2020. Coinciding with her first release through Ingrooves, the goal of the associated release campaign was to re-engage TOKiMONSTA’s fanbase while increasing her global impact and overall visibility.

The project was as immersive and interactive as the LP itself. Ingrooves worked to integrate her visual aesthetics into various platforms to create a memorable and successful campaign. This campaign increased exposure and followers on various social media and digital streaming accounts, all of which contributed to the success of TOKiMONSTA’s album.

For Instagram, Ingrooves collaborated with the artist’s team to create a filter using a visual from a TOKiMONSTA video where her eyes were glowing like sparklers. Through a collaborative effort with Spark AR, the custom filter was up on TOKiMONSTA’s Instagram account so that fans could use it directly after the release of the correlating music video. At one point, there was an increase of over 1,500 daily followers. Ultimately, Ingrooves was able to work with TOKiMONSTA’s team to reach a large number of new followers who quickly translated into listeners on various platforms. All said and done, the campaign brought with it a 10.5% increase in Instagram followers.

We had originally created a live VR art gallery in downtown Los Angeles where fans could come in and experience TOKiMONSTA’s oasis. The event would take fans through different rooms that would display various scenes from her upcoming tour. For each song on the album, fans would walk through a different room. At the end of the gallery, TOKiMONSTA would have a DJ set as well as exclusive merch. Unfortunately due to Covid we had to cancel this event on the week of release. To replace the event, TOKi and our teams set up Lost Resort which was an online experience in which fans were able to premiere the album with TOKi as she discussed the tracks and spoke with fans live. TOKiMONSTA has now kept this going every Thursday through quarantine for fans and artists.

The Ingrooves team helped to develop a release strategy in which three singles were staggered five weeks apart leading into the album release. Commercial pitches were made worldwide to maximise exposure in key territories while expanding her presence and visibility in new markets.

In order to elevate support at Apple Music, a service that had previously shown TOKiMONSTA little support, the Ingrooves team was able to lock in the New Music Daily Global Cover Feature for the second single, ‘Fried For the Night’, which included a Zane Lowe Beats 1 interview. The interview was used as a platform to announce the album release on air worldwide to millions of listeners.

The Ingrooves team collaborated with management to develop strong marketing initiatives to engage fans, strengthening the connection between artist and audience. Ingrooves created geo-targeted data stories and custom ads to reach a large number of new fans who quickly translated into listeners in territories primed for expansion including UK, Mexico and Australia.

Rich data was collected from the single releases confirming TOKiMONSTA’s global audience and used to leverage album coverage as well as collate re-marketing efforts.

The Ingrooves team was able to build a cohesive campaign that was extremely effective at socials and accounts. All of these efforts resulted in high visibility, increases in new fans and listeners, and some of TOKiMONSTA’s highest engagement rates and streaming numbers to date.