In August 2020, we noticed a trend within the TikTok community in which users were creating and uploading content soundtracked by James Arthur’s ‘Train Wreck’, an track from his 2016 album, Back From The Edge.

Sony’s internal tools picked up the initial activity, long before ‘Train Wreck’ began to feature in the TikTok charts. Working closely alongside TikTok, we monitored content and sentiment of user creations to ensure it was appropriate for us to engage with the trend. The objectives were to maximise the trend and dramatically grow streams of ‘Train Wreck’, targeting an unprecedented Top 20 chart position for a non-single catalogue track.

We informed the Official Charts Company that we were planning a major campaign around the track, pitching for the track to be granted a chart reset and amending the catalogue stream weighting – effectively allowing us to work the track as a new single.

As the trend grew, we ensured James was continuously uploading new content, meaning we could lean on TikTok to support this content and increase its reach. After posting an acoustic version of the song and a piece about its meaning, James engaged with content from megainfluencer, Charli D’Amelio, using TikTok’s duet feature.

Shortly after, he used it again to sing along with the best cover versions users had uploaded.

Simultaneously, we boosted James’s acoustic video across TikTok, and hit people with adverts when they searched for James on YouTube, targeting people who may have already seen the trend and encouraging them to take part.

We also pitched the track for additional DSP support (including an Apple Music Song Booster) and created bespoke content for DSPs, including liners recorded by James. At this time, we also began to canvas media to report on the trend and the chart story. This armed us with a strong case to gain additional editorial support within TikTok.

By November, we were far exceeding 200k daily UK streams and have amassed over 25m UK streams of the track since the TikTok trend began.