Warner Music France: delivering a masterclass in leveraging true fans to boost rising star Benson Boone’s profile in a new market

‍About Warner Music France‍

Warner Music France is a division of the global music entertainment company Warner Music Group. In addition to signing and promoting French music artists, a core part of its mission is to promote international artists in France. As such, Warner Music France’s influencer marketing team plays a crucial role in growing and nurturing French audiences for its roster of artists who may hail from as far afield as the US, Brazil or South Korea, or from countries closer to home like the UK, Italy or Spain. 

‍The Campaign: Create, find and strengthen ties between upcoming US artist Benson Boone and his French fans

Having first wowed audiences with his break-out hit single Ghost Town in 2021, American singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Benson Boone has continued to woo new audiences with his personalised brand of soulful pop rock. Clearly going places, the young artist has continued to seduce new fans with hits Like in the Stars and Beautiful Things. More recently, the rising star has performed as the opening act on selected dates of the European leg of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour.  

Having achieved chart success in a dozen countries and amassed a dedicated TikTok fan base, Ludivine Rome, Head of Digital for WEA (the international label of Warner Music France), knew that Benson Boone’s music held strong appeal. 

“His career in France is just starting and his popularity is growing. His music is listened to widely but his fame needs to reach the same level of popularity as his songs,” comments Ludivine Rome.

With Boone set to perform a solo concert at the celebrated Parisian music venue Elysée Montmartre in May, Warner Music France set about leveraging influencer marketing and Kolsquare to amplify his reach organically amongst a young French audience.

The Challenge: identify and mobilise Benson Boone’s existing fanbase in France

Despite several hit songs resonating across social media, Ludivine Rome and her team at Warner Music France needed to leverage a more nuanced approach to marketing Benson Boone in France to maximise his potential reach and impact.  

“We’re committed to choosing influencer collaborations very carefully to make sure they’re coherent, that they don’t damage the artist's reputation. Partnerships should correspond to Benson’s values and the messages he wants to convey. More than reach, we really want to look for something that corresponds with the artist we're working for,” comments Warner Music’s Ludivine Rome.

In the case of Benson Boone, the challenge was to identify true fans among a sea of social media users who might casually use Boone's music in content, but without having a genuine connection to the artist and his values. 

The viral nature of his songs on platforms like TikTok and Instagram meant that many users might feature his music without necessarily being invested in his career. Thus, distinguishing between casual listeners and dedicated fans was critical to ensuring the campaign's authenticity and effectiveness in the run-up to Boone’s concert at Elysée Montmartre.

‍The solution: Fire up Kolsquare’s powerful database of qualified KOLs to identify Benson Boone’s most ardent fans 

With the goal being to create long lasting links between Boone and his French fans, Warner’s Ludivine Rome and teammate Emmy Harrar used Kolsquare to search for content creators with large followings who were real fans of the artist. 

“Everybody is already using his music in content without really knowing it. It’s already viral on TikTok and Instagram, so we looked on Kolsquare to see if there were KOLs who had already mentioned Benson Boone in their content. We really wanted to identify people who had said things like: ‘I love Benson Boone, I love his music, I love his album’,” comments Rome. 

By offering Warner Music France the capability to identify creators who had specifically mentioned Benson Boone in their content, Kolsquare enabled the team to find influencers who were genuine fans of the upcoming star. 

“The top criteria for identifying profiles was the content, and that’s where Kolsquare really came into play. We also looked at what platforms they were on, and the types of collaborations they were already doing. It was really important to know whether or not they’d worked with companies that didn’t gel with the artist. Finally, the community’s engagement was another important criteria to determine if the content would resonate,” comments Ludivine Rome

‍Warner Music France delivers masterclass in leveraging content creators who are real fans to create genuine connections

Having identified four French fans of Boone with a combined audience of 498K followers, Ludivine and Emmy created personalised gifts for each with the hope they might post a Story on Instagram in return. 

“We found four profiles who really loved Benson, and we wanted to encourage them to continue talking about Benson, to thank them and show them that we saw them,” comments Rome. “We made each one personalised Spotify gifts to stream Beautiful Things and sent it with a little card and photo of Benson. The idea was to really create the tie with the fan KOL and ourselves. We didn’t want to just replicate the same kind of campaign that you see all the time.”  

The campaign's emphasis on rewarding dedicated fans with personalised gifts rather than financial compensation or generic promotional items highlights Warner Music France's commitment to building a loyal and engaged fan base for Benson Boone in France. 

Between them, the four KOLs created 12 pieces of content that achieved an estimated 357K impressions. 

“Beautiful Things had already been presaved thousands of times in France before the title was even released, so we knew there was something there, we just didn’t know who the fans were. By using Kolsquare to identify these four people and thanking them for their fan support, we received 12 times more contents than we'd hoped for! We were expecting perhaps a single thank-you message, but they published about receiving the gift and they published again several weeks later,” comments Warner’s Rome

‍Lessons learned: Combining Kolsquare’s Big Data with a personalised approach is, hands down, a winning strategy

By using Kolsquare to search and connect with KOL profiles who had a genuine passion for Benson Boone’s music, the Warner Music team ensured that its guerrilla campaign to boost Benson’s profile in France was truly authentic and resonated well with audiences. 

The Warner Music France / Benson Boone influence campaign demonstrates the power of Kolsquare’s Big Data capabilities to enable brands and agencies to go beyond surface-level engagement and reach metrics. The ability to distinguish between casual mentions of Boone's music and true fan endorsements was pivotal for the campaign's authenticity and effectiveness.

“I would repeat this kind of campaign for artists who have a really engaged community, but you have to be careful not to repeat it too much or it could lose its value,” comments Rome. 

Want to learn more about how Kolsquare can help your brand create meaningful connections with true fans? Book a demo with one of our Influence Experts today!