How Breakout Star DENM Cracked 1,000,000 Spotify Streams
/Wavo is a digital marketing platform and agency that specifically caters to the music & entertainment industries. Current clients include Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, SFX, Armada, Ultra and more. Wavo runswavo.me/boost — the native advertising network for arts & culture.
Who is DENM?
California based electro-garage artist DENM, is one of the breakout electronic stars of 2016. His groundbreaking style coupled with the recent virality of his EP, Dreamhouse, has earned him recognition from some of music’s most respected critics. DENM continues to grow his audience of fans at an exponential rate, and is currently working on a second EP.
Campaign & Goal
DENM’s team approached Wavo in July, with the goal of increasing Spotify streams and followers for the artist. Wavo suggested DENM’s campaign utilize a cross-platform marketing strategy, employing both a Boost campaign alongside a remix competition for his track “Lit.”
Since the beginning of his partnership with Wavo, DENM’s presence on Spotify has grown massively. At present, his tracks “Under Pressure” and “Lit,” boast a combined streaming count of 1.8 million listens.
“Wavo has been an invaluable partner and an essential tool in helping to market and give as much visibility as possible to new and emerging artists in this digital era. We’ve used their campaigns for all our artists, ranging from established artists like Dirty South to to brand new acts like DENM. There’s nothing out there even comparable to the visibility that Wavo Boost gives an EP, Single, or video release.” — Nima Nasseri, 20 Twenty Management
How & Why Wavo Works
Beginning on July 7th, Wavo began promoting two of DENM’s tracks on our native ad network, Boost. Wavo Boost is a native-advertising platform that’s specifically catered towards the music industry, allowing clients to promote their content on respected music sites through native, below-the-fold and in-feed advertisements that fit the style, interface and context of the websites and editorial they are targeted to. Properly targeted native ads are better suited to the user experience and thus generate more engagement than traditional banner advertisements.
The ad unit for Wavo Boost appearing on top publisher, Dancing Astronaut
Wavo featured advertisements for DENM’s tracks “Lit” and “Under Pressure,” on sites like Fact Mag, Consequence of Sound, and Hype Machine. Each of the ads linked back to Spotify, redirecting valuable music fans to DENM’s artist page. By the conclusion of his 15 day campaign, the native advertisements for DENM’s songs had been viewed a total of 827,000 times, driving thousands of hardcore music fans — individuals who visit these sites specifically to learn, discover and share the new music — to his Spotify artist page.
DENM saw a massive growth in Spotify streams during the month of July
After running the Boost campaign, Wavo suggested utilizing a competition to further the publicity generated through Boost, and increase DENM’s follower count on Spotify. Wavo Competitions are designed to create a unique value exchange between big artists, labels, festivals, and upcoming talent. Sponsors give artists access to high-value content and opportunities like remix stems and label deals, and in return, get tons of incredible remixes and mixes which are shared across the internet.
The competition for “Lit” launched on September 12th, and will remain open to submissions until October 13th, 2016. Fans are required to follow DENM’s Spotify page in order to gain access to song stems, thus ensuring he will continue to play to an audience of receptive fans long after the conclusion of the contest. In its first week the remix competition for “Lit” had engaged 1000+ artists, each of whom followed DENM’s Spotify page in order to participate.
An example of a gating pop-up. In order to gain access to song stems, artists are asked to follow the artist on a platform of their choosing.
The support provided by Wavo has allowed DENM to dramatically increase his Spotify steams and follows. DENM’s Dreamhouse EP has earned acclaim from the likes of Fuse Magazine, who praised him for his dreamy dance cuts, “[reminiscent] of the Chainsmokers and ZHU” (see below). Undoubtably, in the months to come, we will continue to see DENM further his rise as one of the industry’s most interesting new artists.
DENM’s debut EP, Dreamhouse, is enjoying a high degree of critical success