Rollout Roundup 12 : The Best Marketing Rollouts of This Week's Releases

Pop Smoke - FAITH (Album)

Strengths: With incredible use of both street and digital marketing, this posthumous release was one to remember. Starting with mysterious “Pop Smpke, July 16” stickers and street art all over Brooklyn, we saw this album announcement in person before we heard anything online, and that is truly a lost art. The focus on his home city of Brooklyn is very special and felt like the right way to honor Pop Smoke. Continuing this trend, fans could scan the posters in Brooklyn for early previews of album snippets. How innovative!! Additionally, virtual lottery scratchers were used to reveal the tracklist. From start to finish, there was no lack of creativity in this rollout.

Weaknesses: Of course challenges are going to come with posthumous releases, like the inability to include new visuals and press photos, I would love to see some type of promotion content being made for the many, many collaborators on the album. When Dreamville released their collaborative project, they made individual instagram graphics for each and every person involved with the record. I thought that was a great way to get buzz going and to promote the project across all of the different audiences that the many collaborators bring. Something like that would serve this project very well.

Teezo Touchdown - Mid (Single)

Strengths: Innovation. Something Teezo does incredibly well. He started a campaign on Instagram to “rid the mid”, running for mayor of “midville” and posting consistent, captivating content centered around “getting mid off the streets”. Genius and so interesting, we could all stand to learn from his use of instagram, where most new music promotion has turned into “out now” type posts.

Weaknesses: My biggest feedback to Teezo would be to avoid turning into more of an influencer than an artist. During the campaign, it wasn’t clear that this was a campaign for a single release, and his attempt at being mysterious might have cost him quite a bit of buzz around the single. I would like to see his music streams grow at the same pace of his socials, and right now I don’t think the synergy is there. Was this a campaign he formed around his single, or did we make the single to go with his campaign?

Russ - Cheers (Single)

Strengths: A guess the title campaign from one of my favorite social media users went over quite well. Russ is a king with the visuals, and Cheers matched the foundation of his brand, even resembling the art direction of his recent book, Get Out Of Your Head. Russ announced that he is dropping a single every week, and the interesting artist-preneur has never shied away from swimming against the current of industry standards.

Weaknesses: In Russ’s quest to carve his own path, he’s missed a few crucial steps. Some more professional press photos and high quality visuals to supplement his self (or friend?) taken current content would go a long way. I would also like to see Russ do more interviews. He is a rare case where some people (myself included) were drawn to him as a person and business man before they were drawn to him as an artist, and he should use that to elevate his career.