As the latest midweek chart update reveals that The Greatest Showman is set for a sixth consecutive week at No.1, the Atlantic Records UK team behind the campaign have told Music Week that the cast recording has created “iconic” hits.
The soundtrack has seen off several strong challengers for No.1 including Camila Cabello, Fall Out Boy, Craig David and Justin Timberlake, while it’s comfortably ahead of The Wombats in latest midweek chart.
This Is Me, performed by Keala Settle, is also set for a new chart peak as it races to No.3. The song has sales to date of 187,061 according to the Official Charts Company, while the album has moved 211,408 copies and is set to overhaul the total for last year’s biggest movie soundtrack, Moana.
Speaking in the latest issue of Music Week, Nick Long, head of digital, Atlantic Records UK, said the label was able to focus on key tracks by honing in on early streaming data from the album’s release three weeks ahead of the film. The campaign has also targeted user-generated content on social media platforms.
“On the social side, we’ve been monitoring some of the organic UGC that’s come out of the popularity of the film and especially the music,” said Long.
One example involved three girls singing a medley of the soundtrack on Facebook, which had around 200,000 views. After Atlantic approached them to add a link to the video and then got the clip shared by the film’s official page, its views now stand at 5.5 million.
“There’s a real mutual benefit to the soundtrack performing well, it complements the film nicely because it’s obviously a very musical film,” said Long.
Long said that the digital strategy of deliberately appealing to a young audience had helped to make tracks including This Is Me and Rewrite The Stars “iconic”.
“These tracks have been speaking to a wider audience as independent tracks on streaming platforms and iTunes, and they are now becoming hits in their own right,” added Callum Caulfield, head of marketing, Atlantic Records UK.
To read the full interview subscribers can click here.
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