Warner Music UK was victorious in the Sales Team category at the Music Week Awards 2026.
It’s an award that recognises the increasing complexity and ambition in how labels reach fans at physical and digital retail, combining creativity with data-driven insights on cohesive sales campaigns.
Ed Sheeran’s Play saw a huge roll-out including a WhatsApp launch, huge engagement on YouTube, chart-reporting lanyards for sale at his Ipswich Portman Road shows and a strong range of vinyl products.
Play (Atlantic) debuted at the summit and has consumption to date of 173,969 units (Official Charts Company), while the + - = ÷ X – Tour Collection remains a chart fixture and has amassed consumption of 643,682 to date.
The Warner Sales Team also played a key role in the breakthrough of Alex Warren, who had the biggest song of 2025 with Ordinary (2,850,985), while the single’s success helped debut album You’ll Be Alright Kid (Chapter 1) reach No.1 last summer several months after its release. Warren has a current Top 10 hit with Fever Dream (No.3 peak, 347,030 units to date).
Warner also secured a Christmas No.1 album and single for Kylie Minogue and helped PinkPantheress and EsDeeKid to impact the UK and global charts. PinkPantheress’ Stateside, which peaked at No.3, remains in the UK Top and has consumption to date of 680,644 units.
Here, Natasha Billing, SVP, revenue & growth at Warner Music UK, shares insights on the team’s transition to a new approach, the huge Sheeran campaign and the expanding audience for vinyl…
Congratulations on this award. What does your role now involve on the Sales Team – it’s now a long way from just selling records?
“That's what I really love about what we've achieved over the last few years. I think we went from being a team with a very traditional focus into actually being a team that is really good at marketing, really understands the fan, is really curious and is really data-driven. So I feel really chuffed that they've been recognised, it's really good.”
A huge amount of effort and attention to detail went into the Ed Sheeran Play roll-out. What would you say about the success of that campaign?
“The campaign itself was shaped around a really multifaceted idea, driven by Ed's creative vision. It manifested itself in a really compelling way across all the physical formats that we had, really interesting digital formats, and across all of the different channels we had available. The team worked really, really hard with the label at Atlantic to ensure that we were making the maximum potential of all of the different channels of fan engagement, marketing and product distribution as possible. So yeah, it was an exciting project to work on.”
There have been a lot of big releases already this year. What are you building up towards at the moment?
“PinkPantheresss is doing an amazing job [with Stateside], and is just lasting and lasting – that has seen propulsive momentum. We’ve got the Madonna campaign [Confessions II, out July 3], which is super-exciting and playing out in a really exciting, dynamic way, driven by [an artist] who has an amazing creative vision.”
Does it feel like the moment is right for Madonna’s return with a new record?
“Yeah, I think so. It's an album that's really joyous, that celebrates everything that makes music so energising, special and emotionally exciting. She's always been really good at telling that story, and I think this is a fantastic manifestation of that.”
And the campaign has already started with a hit on Bring Your Love with Sabrina Carpenter…
“Yeah, absolutely. Her collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter is just a meeting of the clans across time, which I think is a beautiful, creative moment.”
Finally, following another successful edition of Record Store Day, what’s your sense of how vinyl can continue to keep growing?
“I spend a lot of time thinking about vinyl. We talk to our partners who are seeing really exciting growth in terms of footfall and sales, a lot of which is being driven by young Gen Z women who are buying physical music product, which I think is really exciting. At Record Store Day, we saw really fantastic demand for the event. It will only become more and more successful, because I think it's definitely being propelled by a younger demographic, who are discovering the format for the first time.”
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