We began this campaign with a lot of luck on our side. We had an artist whose career had been consistently gathering steam, accolades (and industry fans) in the two and a half years since the debut album was released, breaking out of the DIY/indie scene it had begun in and moving into wider appeal – helped by guest spots singing with The 1975, The National and myriad others. We were also moving into a campaign with an artist who was super creative, hands-on and extremely hard working.

Our focus for Phoebe was to have a campaign that really showcased her personality beyond the music, whilst letting the music speak for itself. Phoebe’s songs capture a very certain ennui and, frankly sadness, which she juxtaposes with an extremely dry wit and fairly base humour through her social media and performance. This well-rounded character is what we were aiming to get across. We avoided major (costly) stunts and – obviously in lockdown! – focused on a number of small and easily managed social contests and sessions.

Garden song contest: we invited fans to create their own version of Phoebe’s ‘Garden Song’ video. This was already a fairly low-budget video and a great example of Phoebe’s dark humour coming across. We were inundated with responses which increased the virality of the original video, multiple opportunities to re-push it and a great way of getting new and old fans to interact online.

Tiny Desk contest: this was one of many, many sessions Phoebe did, but as a more high-profile one, we wanted to make sure that something set it apart. One of the songs on the record features a loud scream towards the end of the song, so fans were invited to record themselves screaming along. These were then collected and played at the session along with the song, a fan-choir of screaming. This again increased virality of the session (multiple shares) and created a unique moment.

Spotify filter: we worked with Spotify to create an Instagram filter to go alongside Phoebe’s wildly successful video for ‘Kyoto’. This allowed fans to put themselves in the video – surfing with the backdrop behind them. The filter took on a life of its own when fans began to insert their dogs, and soon all kinds of pets, with Phoebe reposting each of them.

‘Naughty’ signed prints: this was a last-minute decision that reaped rewards. Phoebe had signed a vast amount of stock and prints to help stores market their physical product. She had a little fun with the final few towards the end, scrawling some pretty NSFW messages for fun. We took these prints – each unique – and offered them out to retailers as a competition prize in the final week of release. It gathered an incredible amount of social coverage and hugely increased pre-orders in the final few days.