Tion Wayne is one of the most influential artists in the UK. After the cultural recordbreaking phenomenon that was Body in 2021, we wanted to further build upon Tion’s story, his brand and amplify his impact, not only in black music culture but also in wider pop culture.

As a team, we knew that we could mobilise Tion’s engaged audience through the clever sample usage as well as engage the many fans who fell in love with La Roux and the original ‘In For The Kill’ record over 10 years ago. 

We began teasing the record through organic videos of Tion on set with popular influencer Yasmine Lopez. The idea here was to merge both audiences together as well as tease the audio organically, something artists in this space don’t usually do with US influencers. This resulted in over 500k views in 24 hours on TikTok alone, with fans recognising the sample and praising Tion’s use of it.

Following this, we made sure to utilise TikTok’s duet feature, which saw La Roux duet on Tion’s original teaser video. Fans loved the authentic reaction and quickly encouraged La Roux to “get in the studio (with Tion) to make what was deemed to be just a sample track a real collaboration.

The music video saw Tion and La Roux in a cinematic Mexican backdrop that rivalled a Netflix original commission. We intentionally hid La Roux’s involvement in the music video until the YouTube premiere (watched by over 5k people) to ensure it came as a surprise to fans. On TikTok, we replied to comments encouraging the collaboration with clips from the music video which quickly became La Roux’s highest video to date on the platform and one of the songs of the summer, with the record on over 60m UK streams.

We followed up the first few weeks of success with more engaging content in order to bridge the gap between generations as well as audiences. Our OOH campaign saw tweets made by fans plastered around the UK paying homage to the record and both artists – something that was picked up on by fans as well as online platforms.

Overall, the campaign was a true testament to two artists who are willing to push boundaries in order to reach new audiences, instinctive A&R-ing and long-term strategic marketing that was reactive and penetrated new ground through the use of social media.