John Dawkins, managing director at Various Artists Management, has told Music Week that Tom Grennan’s Gillette partnership has been “beneficial on many levels” as preparations for his new album kick into overdrive.
We spoke to Dawkins backstage at the Music Week Awards, as Grennan’s manager was joined by Sony Music 4th Floor Creative senior brands manager Clare Allan to talk about their Gillette campaign – featuring the singer's version of The Best A Man Can Get – which won the Music & Brand Partnership category.
“It's been a couple of years in the making, so it's nice that the campaign has lived on and taken on speed,” said Allan. “We're so lucky to work with an artist like Tom who can talk to a sporting audience, a fitness audience as well.”
“It's been great to work on and it's really given life to us going out of one campaign and into a new campaign,” said Dawkins. “It's been great.”
In our Q&A below, the pair discuss the viral impact of the track – host Jamz Supernova even led the sold out Music Week Awards crowd in a singalong – and what it has done to boost Grennan’s career.
It was being played so much that at Tom's own shows, people were holding up signs saying ‘play the Gillette song'
Clare Allan, Sony Music 4th Floor Creative
This campaign has been huge for Tom, what does it mean to get this recognition?
John Dawkins: “We’re surprised, I’m chuffed!”
Clare Allan: “Tom recorded his version of The Best A Man Can Get a year-and-a-half ago and from there, it's kind of snowballed, we’ve done stuff with The Art Of Football, the charity Football Beyond Borders and we've also worked with the Champions League so it's just gone on and on.”
JD: "It's been amazing. At one point it became almost Tom's biggest hit, but it allowed him to buy his granny's farm in Ireland, pay his mum and dad's mortgage off. It's been a great partnership, he’s actually really embraced the song. The original was actually written by the guy who did the first ever single for Led Zeppelin, which not many people know. It's been an amazing collaboration.”
It’s become so ingrained now, but was there any hesitation initially?
JD: "For me, it was a no at one point because I don't want him being defined by something like this. I think he thought he could sing it and get away without anyone noticing it was him! But he was up for doing it and then it became a thing where it really started taking off and he just fully embraced it."
CA: “And it grew so exponentially throughout last summer and was being played so much that actually at Tom's own shows, people were holding up signs in the crowd saying ‘play the Gillette song.’”
JD: “It was a bit of a zeitgeist guy kind of thing, actually. It forced our hand in terms of performing it live…”
CA: “So much so that at his biggest headline show at Gunnersbury Park last summer, he actually walked out to the track.”
JD: “We thought it'd be a little thing and then just started getting bigger and bigger and dictating the state of play, certainly algorithmically on social media. It’s driving our catalogue, driving new numbers and data into the next campaign."
CA: “It's been brilliant, long may it continue!
The song seems to follow us around globally, it's been interesting getting into other territories that I didn't even think it had reached
John Dawkins, Various Artists Management
What kind of spikes have you seen?
JD: “People that wouldn't acknowledge Tom or demographics that were not engaged with his music per se have an awareness of who he is now and have dived into other areas of what he's about, whether it's fitness or his love of football or whatever else. Looking at the data, it's actually pulled in people that we weren't hitting before. It's been a really interesting experiment.”
And what has this partnership taught you about Tom's potential with brand deals?
CA: “He's also the face of Pop Chips, so he has two big ambassadorships going on at the moment. For us it’s about making sure that everything we do helps us with our campaign, whether that's the press angle or driving people to buy tickets for the shows or obviously streaming.”
JD: “The partnerships are all just good data drivers in terms of DSPs, tickets and all that kind of thing. But also they are brands that Tom is engaged with and he is interested in working with in terms of thinking about where any money from the project can be put elsewhere. So with Pop Chips, we’ve been putting it back into grassroots football, LBGTQ+ teams, regional football teams, which is something he's really interested in. He also does charity work, he's an ambassador for the Teenage Cancer Trust and Mind and the Music Venue Trust. So we take elements of these [brand partnerships] and feed them into those [other causes]. For instance, we're doing some stuff with the MVT and allegiances with their bands. It's been really beneficial, it allows things to happen, for the spider’s web of things he wants to do. Gillette was such a big thing fiscally for him as well, to do that for his mum and dad and buy his granny's farm in Ireland that was being taken away. It's been beneficial on many levels.”
CA: “A few weeks ago, we went to a Champions League game in Milan and we had his dad in content as well, so that tie-in was nice and also getting him into a European market.”
How is the new record shaping up?
JD: “There’s a new single coming, then the album out, post the Oasis tour. Everyone's got to avoid the Oasis tsunami! The album is coming in mid-August, hopefully it'll be another No.1 album, then there’s a sold out UK arena for September, then into Europe, Asia, Australia. The Gillette song seems to follow us around globally, so it's been quite interesting getting into other territories that I didn't even think it had reached, it’s just been a viral thing and moved into other areas. It's been great.”
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