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Marketing Campaign Analysis - Charli XCX

Charli XCX - Boys

Product: New Single
Budget: £15,000+
Location: Global
Label: Atlantic Records

Campaign Part 1: Video Launch

Released on the 26 July 2017, Charli XCX premiered her video for new single 'Boys' from her untitled upcoming album. The video featured a star studded cast of male celebrities across all industries, movie stars, pop stars, youtubers and models. To begin the road to release, lyrics from the song were tweeted with 90s style collages of her favourite boys, pictured below.
 

All the boys involved were also sent a BTS pack with gifs, photos and video clips to promote on social media. The impact of this in terms of marketing is that the video is promoted to audiences that otherwise wouldn't be reached and the video reaches a higher audience span because fans of the cast are more likely to view and tertiary promote the video.



Campaign Part 2: Promoting the video and single

In order to promote the video, Charli XCX released sponsored pictures on instagram of the 'boys' on fake tinder profiles to feature on users feeds. The aim of this is to get non-followers of the artist curious and encourage them to click on the picture linked to the video. By using pictures of the boys instead of generic single artwork or video stills, the pictures will once again reach a wider audience to just her own, as the cast may be recognisable to and interest more people, creating clickbait.


Campaign Part 3: Messenger Bot

Charli XCX and the label also worked alongside Facebook to develop a messenger bot for fans to interact with the video. The bot would ask fans questions such as 'which boy do you fancy the most?' and 'Whats your best boy advice?' and the results were published real time in a poll for fans to see.

Campaign Part 4: Conversation

Perhaps not a typical marketing technique but none-the-less effective was creating conversation as behind the pretty pink colour scheme, the range of eye-candy males, and catchy tunes is a very topical theme. The song has underlying themes of feminism, and the video is the idea of 'flipping the male gaze,' a concept prominent in the entertainment industries. The male gaze is the idea that females are placed and objectified to catch the eye of male audiences, by placing boys in perhaps sexual situations in the video and objectifying them in the ways females have been in videos for decades reverses the traditional gender roles.

The motive for such an idea comes from Charli XCX personal views of female artists in the industry to which she told BBC Breakfast

 "Throughout my career I’ve been very vocal on my opinion about being a woman in the music industry. I get asked questions about feminism all the time … I’m not somebody who is worried about wearing revealing outfits or performing provocatively on stage – as long as that’s my choice I’m completely happy to do it"
 


The Music Video:
References:

Sandbox. (2017). This years best music marketing campaign. [online]. Available at: http://musically.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Sandbox194-eoy-47284626.pdf

Nerssessien, J. (2017). Charli XCX discusses feminist message behind boys video. Newspaper, [online]. Available at: https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/charli-xcx-discusses-feminist-message-behind-her-boys-music-video-35988490.html











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