Craig Armstrong — Nocturnes

Overview

Craig Armstrong is an Oscar, BAFTA, and Ivor Novello-winning composer. His film scores — Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby — are part of the cultural fabric. In 2021, he released something entirely different: Nocturnes: Music for 2 Pianos, a collection of 19 intimate piano compositions on Modern Recordings, BMG’s contemporary classical imprint.

Tell Your Friends was brought in by IE Music to lead the digital campaign from first single to deluxe edition — managing Craig’s social channels, producing video and design assets, coordinating with a six-party stakeholder team across three countries, and delivering a thirteen-month release programme that culminated in BMG’s first-ever Dolby Atmos album.

Challenge

This wasn’t a straightforward single-artist campaign. It was a rolling thirteen-month release programme with six singles, a full album, bonus tracks, and a Spatial Audio deluxe edition — each requiring coordinated marketing across multiple organisations with different workflows, priorities, and time zones.

The stakeholder map:

• Artist: Craig Armstrong (Glasgow) — deeply involved in creative decisions, reviewing every asset personally.
• Management: IE Music (London) — led by Tim Clark, with Lucy Pullin coordinating day-to-day.
• Label: Modern Recordings / BMG (Berlin) — Christian Kellersmann (SVP) and Birgit Hoensch running the campaign from Germany.
• Distribution: Universal Music (UK) — handling physical and digital distribution.
• Technology Partners: Apple Music and Dolby (London) — supporting the Spatial Audio initiative.
• Filmmaker: Kris Boyle — producing music videos that needed social edits, teasers, and platform-specific adaptations.

Every single release required syncing content across all parties. Every asset needed approval from Berlin and London. Every YouTube upload triggered Content ID disputes that had to be resolved with BMG’s ops team before release-day momentum was lost.

The challenge wasn’t just creative execution — it was operating as the connective tissue between six organisations, each with their own priorities, while making sure the music reached listeners on time, every time.

Approach

We embedded as the digital hub — the single point where creative assets, platform strategy, and stakeholder coordination converged.

Social Media & Channel Management

We took full ownership of Craig Armstrong’s social presence across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This wasn’t scheduling posts — it was building a narrative across platforms over thirteen months: teaser clips for each single, release-day announcements, playlist shares tagged to Spotify and Deezer, Spatial Audio launches with Apple assets, and BBC Culture amplification.

For each release, we produced platform-specific assets — 1:1 feed formats, 9:16 stories, 15-second cuts, 20-second cuts — adapting Kris Boyle’s films into the formats each platform demands. When the album shifted from pre-order to release, every asset across every channel was updated same-day.

Video Production & Editing

We produced teaser clips, social edits, and Spotify Canvas animations for each single. On Nocturne 12, Craig trusted us with additional editing on the official film itself — credited alongside the artist and filmmaker. When Craig shot raw footage in his own studio, he sent it to us to edit into something publishable. That level of trust doesn’t come from a brief. It comes from months of proving you understand the work.

YouTube Premiere Strategy

We proposed and executed YouTube Premieres for each single — a strategy the team hadn’t used before. This created event moments around each release, with countdown pages driving anticipation. It also meant navigating recurring Content ID blocks: BMG’s automated systems would flag Craig’s own music as copyright infringement on his own channel. We resolved these directly with BMG’s YouTube operations team, often under release-day pressure.

Newsletter & Email Campaigns

We set up and managed Craig Armstrong’s mailing list through Mailchimp — building a direct channel to fans that complemented the platform-dependent social strategy. The album launch, deluxe edition, and Spatial Audio release were all supported with dedicated email campaigns.

Stakeholder Coordination

Every release day, we sent a formal briefing to the full team — BMG Berlin, IE Music London, Universal Distribution, the artist, and management — with all links, assets, and platform statuses. When BMG needed social media reports for Apple, we provided screenshots and analytics. When Christian Kellersmann needed proof of social activity for the German sales team, we delivered same-day. When Dolby UK needed aligned partner messaging, we coordinated.

This is the invisible work that makes a campaign feel effortless from the outside.

Creative Solution

The creative challenge was restraint. Craig Armstrong’s music is quiet, precise, emotionally vast. The visual language had to honour that — no hyperbole, no trend-chasing. Every teaser, every social post, every Canvas animation was designed to let the music breathe while still cutting through algorithmically-driven feeds.

We created a social content strategy document (CA-SOCIAL-CONTENT.pdf) that mapped the full campaign arc — from pre-release teasers through album launch to deluxe Spatial Audio push — ensuring consistency across a thirteen-month window. Emma Ford took it to Craig directly: “I’ll get a list to take to Craig of what we’d like to achieve. Looks good!”

The Spatial Audio component added a new dimension. When BMG confirmed it was their first-ever Dolby Atmos release, the stakes were clear: Apple was watching, Dolby was involved, and the promotional assets needed to reflect a premium technology launch, not just another reissue. We adapted Craig’s social channels to carry dedicated Apple Spatial Audio assets alongside the musical content — positioning the release as both an artistic statement and a technological milestone.

Results & Impact

• Six singles released across all platforms (Nocturnes 4, 3, 12, 11, 1, 15), each with full social, video, and email support.
• Album launch on 3 September 2021 — coordinated across BMG, Universal, IE Music, and the artist.
• Deluxe edition with Dolby Atmos / Apple Spatial Audio — BMG’s first-ever Spatial Audio release.
• ASCAP New Music Friday Spotify Playlist — Nocturne 3 featured.
• Apple Music Piano Chill Playlist — Craig featured, with dedicated promotional assets from Apple.
• BBC Culture feature — amplified across Craig’s social channels on release week.
• Dolby UK partnership — Miriam Wright (Senior Marketing Manager, Europe) and Jane Gillard directly involved in promotional alignment.
• Thirteen-month engagement — 372 emails, six stakeholder organisations, three countries, zero missed deadlines.

The campaign demonstrated what happens when a small, embedded team operates as the connective tissue in a complex, multi-stakeholder release. We weren’t the label, the management, or the distributor — we were the people who made sure everything landed.

Tim Clark, Chairman of IE Music — the man who manages Robbie Williams — put it simply on album release day:

“Happy release day indeed, Jeffrey! Thanks for all the links and to you and the team, well done for all your hard work!!”

Lucy Pullin, eight months later, introducing Jeff to a new contact:

“Looping in the always brilliant Jeff.”