Released in late January 2019, ‘i’m so tired’ (with Troye Sivan) marked a key breakthrough for Lauv in the UK and many other markets around the world. With its release, the AWAL team devised a multi-tiered marketing strategy aiming to capitalise on the growing mainstream audience familiarity with ‘I Like Me Better’, increase Lauv’s growing core audience, convert Troye Sivan fans into Lauv fans and expand the song’s reach to a wide and mainstream pop audience.

When launching the track, we knew the best and most authentic way to reach Troye Sivan’s fans was through his own channels. We created two separate official audio videos – one for Lauv’s channel and one for Troye’s. We used a key visual narrative for the forthcoming official video and expanded it for the official audio video. In one video, Lauv drives Troye through the LA hills; and in the other, Troye drives Lauv. Both videos were launched at the same time to great success. Audience reach was much more important that splitting view counts across the two videos.

We knew early on that the chemistry between both artists was key so we devised a series of video content pieces with them: some were created and owned by us (such as a cooking show); and others were made with key media partners including MTV, Vogue, Genius and Billboard. These pieces helped new fans make real connections with both artists and served the campaign well.

To keep our streaming and consumption momentum up, we released a series of additional pieces, including a stripped version with live video and a remix from UK producer MNEK. These pieces allowed us exposure in new areas within streaming, radio and online and allowed fans already aware of the song to forge a deeper connection with it.

UK radio was growing well, with the Capital and Kiss networks fully supporting Lauv for the first time. We also undertook a full commercial club promotion campaign in the UK alongside a student and in-store retail promotions campaign.

All of these small pieces were adding to the overall growth of the song and, as the song started to rise on the UK chart, streaming, radio airplay and club charts, offers for bigger media came in.

By early summer 2019, we knew we had a song that was being embraced by the mainstream and championed by our fans. We doubled our efforts in leaving no stone unturned.

TikTok challenges, influencer campaigns, Shazam unlock campaigns and strategic online and out-of-home advertising followed. With each new piece, the song continued to grow and reach a new audience.