After signing Teneil Throssell (aka HAAi) in 2019, Mute spent two years releasing two EPs and double A-side single, largely in support of her DJ career. We knew we were going to have to step things up with a debut album that would elevate her standing to that of a fully fledged artist.
2022 started with a bang with HAAi featuring on Fred Again’s hit ‘Lights Out’ (with Romy, via Atlantic). It helped to build monthly listeners and to launch the album campaign, which officially kicked off with the cover of Mixmag magazine and a world-first AI cover feature.
HAAi delivered a brilliant album with amazing collaborations, however it was important to establish it as her own artistic statement, and thus we led with the solo track ‘Bodies Of Water’, which secured playlist support across DSPs and at BBC 6 Music. Subsequent singles were chosen to showcase different shades of the album and who HAAi is as an artist, and secured further support at DSPs, press, and radio.
We identified Spotify and 6 Music as key partners based on previous support; we presented the music and campaign to them early to get their buy in. Spotify supported the record with four Altar covers amongst many other playlists and HAAi was announced as their Equal Ambassador for June, which included in-platform and OOH support. We ran Marquee advertising with them and a Fans First initiative offering show tickets and exclusive merch. Apple Music, Deezer and Amazon Music also supported heavily and HAAi featured on over 20 playlist covers through the campaign.
The visuals for the campaign were created by Tom Furse (from The Horrors, in collaboration with HAAi) who established an AI world reflecting the themes of the album, through a series of videos culminating in a world-first video combining choreography and machine learning visuals.
We also worked with Hype Lab to build out HAAi’s social footprint. She had been sharing great content on her Instagram but we wanted to expand her audience outside of her usual DJ one. The results were a stronger bond with her core audience and significant growth.
Fantastic growth across socials this year: 25%+ on Instagram, 33%+ on YouTube, and 12%+ on Twitter. She launched a TikTok account and gained 1k followers. Spotify saw a 48% increase in streams and 374% increase in monthly listeners, whilst Apple Music saw a +3,000% increase in plays and listeners.
Her album launch show at Corsica sold out in minutes and her debut full live performance at EartH (this November) sold out in a few hours.
This considerable growth shows that HAAi establishing herself as an artist, outside of her DJ/producer world has opened up massive new opportunities and audiences to her. We’ve learnt to not feel constrained by preconceived notions of who she was to dictate the campaign and the direction in which she continues to grow.
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