The Be Right Back project kicked off with the release of a short clip of video for single ‘Addicted’ on Jorja’s TikTok account on 8th March 2021. This was posted with no context and was the first post on her account with the profile being created a few months prior. A day later, fans would learn what this mysterious clip was as ‘Addicted’ was named BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record with the video following it.

‘Addicted’ was supported by digital advertising that spanned across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Spotify and TikTok. Traffic across paid and organic socials drove over 300k clicks.

A few days prior to the announcement of the project, a trailer featuring a red background and animated Be Right Back handwritten text was added to Jorja’s socials and a very simple mailing list sign-up page was added to jorjasmith.com. On the 19th April the release of Be Right Back was officially announced along with the release of a track called ‘Gone’ which was accompanied by a video which Jorja has recorded herself during lockdown.

Once we had learned that the theme of the video for Jorja’s next single would be based around Jorja playing a dodgy car mechanic we began to brainstorm ideas about how we could best tease this. We had so many ideas that we decided that it was best to house them in a fake car garage website hosted at nicemotorsgarage.com. The website featured several Easter eggs that include clues about the new single ‘Bussdown’ and project.

These included a Facebook Messenger that fans could message with an automated response, email addresses for “Jay” (Jorja) and “Shay” (Shaybo, who also featured on the single) which when emailed would send fans an out of office autoreply with exclusive images from the shoot, a map of local “branches”/ record stores when fans could collect air fresheners and a Walsall phone number with the answerphone message of Jorja and Shaybo in character and an exclusive clip of the new single.

On the 13th May, things became a little clearer as Jorja’s announced new single ‘Bussdown’ with a YouTube premiere of the mechanic themed video and BBC Radio 1 Hottest Record. The track, video and project were released the following day.

Despite the vinyl release of Be Right Back being a few months later to that of the digital and CD release the eight-track project debuted inside the Top 10 of the Official UK Chart. In the months that followed Jorja played Glastonbury, BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, All Points East and released a video for ‘Home’.