Atlantic Records triumphed in the Artist Marketing Campaign category at the Music Week Awards in recognition of their hugely impactful Brat roll-out.
Charli XCX’s album was the biggest by a UK act in 2024 and has sales to date of 395,598, according to the Official Charts Company. She also secured a No.1 single with Guess (feat. Billie Eilish).
Following her UK tour (featuring simulated rainfall on stage), Grammys wins and performance, and BRITs wins, the album continues to stream incredibly well. And there’s a catalogue hit in the form of 2020’s Party 4 U.
Here, Sam Spencer, EVP at Atlantic, is joined by marketing colleagues to reflect on an inspired and at times “chaotic” campaign that delivered incredible results…
How does it feel to win this award for the Brat campaign?
Sam Spencer: “It's an absolute pleasure. It's been such a fun year to be able to be a part of the whole campaign with Charli. She's definitely the one that is the driving force behind everything. We're just kind of happy to be on the pitch and happy to be there to make it all come to life for her.”
Atlantic and Charli XCX is such an enduring partnership, it must feel quite close at this stage?
Sam Spencer: “Yeah, I can only imagine what it feels like for Ed Howard, who signed her when she was 16 years old. I'm sure he would have a very eloquent answer for this question. But it's amazing to see. I think it's pretty unheard of for artists to see this level of global breakthrough on the seventh album. So it’s a once in a lifetime moment to be part of.”
Tell us about the Brat rollout, with the lime green branding and Teslas around London…
Sam Spencer: “It was definitely chaotic. We ended up in this weird cycle of trying to challenge ourselves with how quickly we could try and pull off all of these activations. With the Tesla, I think we pulled that together in 24 hours. There were parties in Ibiza, it was a hell of a lot of fun, but it was complete chaos. By the end, we were almost joking amongst ourselves as to how little time we were giving ourselves to actually get the activations together that we were trying to pull off. But it definitely worked getting Charli's fans off the internet and onto the streets. It was wicked to see.”
Everything seemed to fit perfectly on this campaign, including the Boiler Room DJ set..
Sam Spencer: “Charli was very intentional that this was the dance album when she presented her manifesto to us right at the beginning of the campaign, maybe nine months before any music came out. She had a very clear vision of how she wanted this to be received by the world. And, yeah, the Boiler Room was a brilliant kind of positioning piece in terms of dance culture at the very beginning. And it was a really fun party.”
Charli is the driving force behind everything
Sam Spencer
How important were the TikTok livestreams for the Brat campaign?
Ruth Scheinberg (audience manager): “The BRAT Wall in the US is a big part of that, in terms of kicking off the live stream roll out. And then we did a few over here. We had the London Eye going Brat green on livestream, and then Charli surprising fans on that livestream, which was an incredible moment just to see happen in real life. I think fans at that point got the memo that if a livestream popped up on Charli's channel, she was maybe going to show up at some point. So it was really wonderful to see them all swarm there, and then see their joy and excitement when she actually arrived there, which was great.”
Was it quite groundbreaking the way you did it in terms of that fan-focused approach, including private Instagram accounts?
Sam Spencer: “That was all Charli. She started that, I think it was about 12 months before the campaign. Before we even knew what Brat was, she had started the 360 Brat account, and she was letting super fans in, periodically, and she knew the ones that were there early enough to cotton onto it were going to be the ones that really moved mountains for her; the ones that were going to really support her in the biggest way. She always has been a marketing genius, and we just amplify the whole thing.”
And where does it go from here with Brat still going strong and the revival of catalogue track Party 4 U?
Sam Spencer: “Party 4 U is doing over two million streams a day at this point. It's great to see people that are arriving to the party now, really diving into the rest of the catalogue – Party 4 U, Track 10, we're seeing quite a few tracks starting to bubble up, which is really exciting. Charli's got lots of plans for the rest of the year. She's just come off the back of four sold-out Barclays Centre shows and the Met Gala, and she's got an amazing European festival run coming up over the summer, and a few more surprises for later in the year.”
Ruth Scheinberg: “Brat summer 2.0!”
Was that catalogue consumption a fairly organic, fan-driven process?
Sam Spencer: “Yeah, we're helping amplify it now, but it was definitely organic in its approach. I think as this mass audience arrives at the party, they are starting to go deeper into the catalogue. And she's been performing it live on tour.”
Alex Harris (marketing manager): “Ever since the UK arena tour, everyone’s discovering it. The newcomers to Brat were like, ‘Wait, what’s this?’. She has an amazing rain moment for [2017 release] Track 10 in her tour as well.”
PHOTO: (L-R) Sam Spencer, Rosie Cumberlidge, Alex Harris, Ruth Scheinberg
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