Execution

Our activity kicked off with an early awareness campaign, targeting UK bloggers with a drip-feed of information about Leona’s new material, in order to build anticipation and get people talking. We then identified key opinion-formers whose support we wanted to ensure, and used a series of exclusive features (interviews, video clips, meet-and-greets, invites to album launch events etc) to introduce them to the concept of Leona as singer and performer rather than reality show winner, positioning her as a world-class superstar.

We knew that Leona had a huge existing online following, with clips of her X Factor performances already notching up tens of millions of views, so were careful to provide as much new video material as possible to carry this enthusiasm across to the new material. We used behind-the-scenes footage from photoshoots, video diaries, B-roll from the promo video shoot, and preview clips of new material to ensure a regular flow of new audio and video material to Youtube, in each instance including information about the new material and directing fans to the official Leona site to pre-order the album.

As the release dates approached our campaign stepped up, with regular news stories placed to increase Leona’s profile and fame, again positioning her as a superstar (e.g. highlighting the ‘chart war’ with Take That, her Harpers Bazaar photoshoot, and her return to X Factor for the debut TV performance of Bleeding Love).

Our campaign saw us operating on two levels, firstly a full-on editorial push to draw attention to the releases and position Leona as a superstar, and secondly a seeding campaign to ensure the hardcore fans were kept satisfied and energized to spread the word among the online community.