ZHU
BREAKING ZHU AS A NEW ARTIST
I helped create a marketing strategy and rebrand current artist. We decided to remove all music from platform once we signed ZHU to the management company Th3rd Brain. We (myself and Th3rd Brain (Jake Udell) went through all music and decided to reintroduce ZHU on a single song basis.
OUR GOAL FROM THE BEGINNING WAS TO GET ZHU SIGNED TO A MAJOR AMERICAN LABEL SUCH AS UNIVERSAL OR SONY.
I came up with strategy to use Unknown artist via hype machine charts by securing press across 23 different blogs along with the Th3rd Brain team. The unknown artist was good to draw attention to the artist who hadn’t received any views on his songs previously. It allowed us to control the narrative for ZHU and allow fans to try and find out more and want to know more about the artist.
The first thing we introduced was a mashup called MOVES LIKE MS JACKSON. The song allowed ZHU to get press and allowed PR people to trust our release strategy without sacrificing an individual song being released.
We pitched press around the song being an unreleased song for Disclosure at Coachella which happened to be coming up in a few weeks. The song released on 21 different sites and gained millions of views across Soundcloud and YouTube while reaching #1 on hype machine.
Two Releases via Hype Machine as Unknown artist then premiereing artists name via BBC Radio 1.
The buzz was buzzing. Who was this Unknown Aritst?
The game was in our hands and we had more food for the press to release an actual song with just the album cover for NightDay. Superfriends was the first song we released from the E.P. and still didn’t release the artist name.
After premiering the song MOVES LIKE MS JACKSON on Pete Tong’s Radio 1 BCC Dance Channel we had created enough industry buzz where people were ready to sign the artist and Pete Tong announce the artists name as ZHU.
Superfriends artwork included ZHU’s logo, but continued with just a random user generated name. It was the same Soundcloud of an unknown artist Moves Like MS Jackson release so we were able to keep the records together building the SoundCloud page up for the name reveal.
The album artwork included the name NIGHTDAY E.P. fans new their was more to come, but what was the artists name? How were we generating millions of views without anyone even knowing who the artist was? We controlled the hype machine charts with our blog strategy and ZHU’s music spoke for itself. It was good, really really really good.
MANAGING ZHU WAS TO GET HIM SIGNED TO A MAJOR LABEL IN THE U.S. BUT HOW? We generated enough buzz to sign his first single with the last two releases.
With all this industry buzz we had to capitalize on it. We connected with Australian Sony entertainment and signed ZHU’s next single “Faded” to Australia. with Triple J’s coverage the song was an overnight success in the dance music world in Australia selling over 10,000 copies, enough to gain the U.S. Major Label’s attention meanwhile ZHU’s Faded was crushing on the blogs and was everywhere eventually landing him on the same label with Krewella at Columbia while revealing his official new artist name “ZHU”. Columbia’s A&R Andrew Keller was sold on our work at Th3rd Brain and saw how we could not only help Krewella but launch new artists with ZHU.
We started releasing more songs continued to hit number one from the E.P. on the cover page of SoundCloud but ZHU’S face still remained anonymous, which allowed bloggers to play off of the continued anonymity of the artist with the song releases. Was this a Disclosure project? Was it another already famous DJ’s side project? Why didn’t they want to release their face, because they wanted to let the music speak for itself.
The artist name wasn’t listed first, to create more speculation and hype into who the artist was we removed their imaging from social media so no one saw their face. This was the first press the artist had received and worked well.
Secured Hype Machine release strategy and press releases for each song roll out as artist slowly released their identity. The strategy was later mimicked by other artists in the industry such as Marshmello and their management company manager Mo Shazil after learning what we did for ZHU at our management company.
