SAM SMITH

Overview

In collaboration with Spotify, we launched a vertical video for Sam Smith’s return single, ‘Too Good At Goodbyes’. The track was the first new music from Sam in nearly two years and was the kick off to his second album campaign. The video was also the start of an extensive collaboration between Sam and Spotify that has lasted through to album release and beyond. As such, we were keen to make a large statement to mark his return, paired with the fact the streaming market had moved on significantly since his last record, we needed to dominate this space.

The result was our vertical video with Spotify. Although this was not the first time Spotify had launched this type of content, it was the largest-scale launch in terms of territories and playlist inclusions. Shot in the Capitol Studios in LA, the video is a black and white one-shot take of Sam singing ‘Too Good At Goodbyes’ direct to camera. The treatment was specifically optimised for the vertical frame, with close-up shots of Sam to make it as visually striking as possible for mobile viewers.

On the Friday, one week before release, three out-of-home billboards went live in London, New York and LA displaying Sam’s name, Spotify branding and the single release date. Sam teased these on his Instagram, marking the start of the second album campaign. The video went live at 5am on 8th September on Spotify in line with the standard single across all DSPs. It was available to view at the top of a host of key playlists, including all global New Music Friday playlists, Today’s Top Hits (the largest playlist on Spotify) and This Is Sam Smith. The video was also cleared for 49 countries and had extensive in-app promotion, social support and out of home billboards. The vertical video and global scale of the launch set the tone for the rest of the album campaign and reflected our ambitions for Sam’s return.

Key Learnings

We already knew how integral streaming was to our relaunch of Sam as a global superstar, but the statement of the vertical video and its domination within Spotify generated a huge amount of interest that far exceeded our expectations.
• Single debuted at #1 of the UK charts and held the spot for three weeks.
• Debuted at #3 on the Spotify global charts with 3.9m day-one streams.
• Reached at #1 on the Global Spotify charts and exceeded 4.5m daily streams at its peak.
• We are still in the Top 3 globally on Spotify two months after release.
• 253m streams to date on Spotify – Sam’s third-most-streamed track on Spotify.
• eighth-most streamed artist on Spotify.
• #1 album in the UK, US and eight other countries.
• 1m albums sold globally in the first week of release.

Key Metrics

Project Budget

Target Age Groups

Demographics

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