Goals
Named Complex Ones to Watch of 2020 and 2019’s Vogue’s One To Watch, London-based R&B singer Kara Marni (First Access Entertainment) released her single “Young Heart” on July 17, 2020. As the lead up to her upcoming brand new EP, “Young Heart” features US multi-platinum record selling artist Russ. The single came about when Russ personally reached out to Kara over Instagram admiring her previous single “Lose My Love”, impressed by her vocals and writing.
Kara Marni’s “Young Heart” digital marketing campaign featured a number of assets stemming from the official music video taking on an 8-bit theme created by Studio Showoff’s Ivan Dixon. The campaign included a landing page, trailers, Instagram and GIPHY stickers, and a web-based game, designed by Wayward Creative.
The goal of the “Young Heart” campaign was to create hype around the collaboration with Russ, build audiences across social media platforms including a new TikTok profile, and drive listeners to the single and video through a web-based game featuring a pixelated / gamified Kara and Russ, tying everything together cohesively.
Tactics
Pre-Save Teasers
Kara started promoting “Young Heart” across socials on July 3 with teasers cut by The Orchard’s design team, encouraging fans to pre-save the track. Overall, the pre-save received 60% Spotify and 35% Apple Music clicks. Kara continued to tease the pre-save every few days until the release date on July 17, using a mix of Instagram feed and story assets, while also talking about the single when performing on live streams. Additionally, The Orchard released 3 GIPHY stickers that supported the video and soon-to-be game. Leading up to the song release, Kara was able to grow her TikTok platform from approximately 300 to over 3,000 followers over the course of a few weeks.
Web-Based Game
In collaboration with Wayward Creative, the web-based game was designed featuring Kara and Russ, both characters in the “Young Heart” official music video. When users click on the game, they are able to choose to play as either Kara or Russ. The game moves from left to right and top to bottom, using arrow keys on the computer or pseudo arrow keys on a mobile device. There are four levels to go through. Level 1 starts in London, then to Kara’s studio, Russ’ backyard in Atlanta, and finishes in Russ’ home studio. A player wins the game if they make it through all levels without dying. Throughout the game, players can collect pizzas and records, and dodge meme billboard obstacles. At the end of the game, whether the winner or the loser, players have the option to add their name and score to the leaderboard.
Kara announced the launch of the game via an Instagram feed and story post – the story post was also supported by Russ. Before users are let into the game, they are prompted to “unlock it” by following Kara on Spotify or adding the song to their library on Apple Music. When users are playing the game, they’re also streaming the single. The leaderboard showed fans were playing multiple times.
Call To Action Assets
Aside from the aforementioned pre-save and single teasers, The Orchard’s design team designed a landing page, utilizing the music video as the background to the site. Visitors can stream or buy the single, enter Kara’s artist website, or play the Young Heart game. All pre-save banners across social platforms were rebranded and socials were reskinned with new ‘out now’ banners. Additionally, specific music video teasers/trailers were cut for both Kara and Russ and used for advertising assets. Spotify banners were also designed in-house. Apple Music lyric assets were also created, which Kara shared on her Instagram story.
Results
- 70% of people followed on Spotify and 26% saved the song on Apple Music
- The game had 15,000 unique users
- 1.5 million views on “Young Heart” YouTube video
- Kara’s socials increased by 20k+ followers since Young Heart was released
- YouTube: +15k new followers
- Twitter: +2k new followers
- Instagram: +13k new followers
- Peak impressions of 1 million, 80k+ interactions (over 7 day period)
- 15k+ accounts used Kara’s custom IG filter
- TikTok: 9.5k Followers (9.5k new followers)
- Trended #1 on#TikTokFashionMonth out of 2Billion videos
- Trended #1 on #onewish out of 115 Million videos
- Kara Marni GIPHY page now at 11.5 million views
- “Young Heart” spent 5 consecutive weeks on 1Xtra’s B-List to date
- “Young Heart” featured on 18 New Music Fridays (US, UK, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, World, Gulf, Singapore, Iceland, Levant, Egypt, Sweden, North Africa, 新歌熱播, Suomi, 新歌快遞)
- “Young Heart” featured on a number of Apple Music Playlists includingA-List R&B, Breaking R&B, 33x New Music Daily, Future Hits, R&B Hip Hop & Soul
