Dua Lipa Management: Very Ambitious For DL3. Wants To Change Pop Culture

[RAMROD 104,131]

Dua Lipa’s latest campaign is in full swing and, according to Joe Kentish and his team at Warner Records, Houdini is set to cast a lasting spell as her third album looms.

Released last week, Houdini was at No.2 in Music Week’s latest sales flash, marginally behind Jack Harlow’s Lovin On Me. Dua Lipa has 10 UK Airplay No.1s and could extend that record tally to 11 with Houdini this week.

Houdini has 18,867,879 streams on Spotify and 27m views on YouTube. The star wrote the track with core third album collaborators Caroline Ailin, Danny L Harle, Tobias Jesso Jr, and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker. The song, which has drawn attention for incorporating elements of disco, psychedelia and a prominent synth solo, was produced by Parker and Harle.

Of its 21,653 sales so far this week, 19,068 derive from streams, with 1,485 sales from downloads and 1,100 from CD and cassette editions.

Here, Kentish, together with Warner MD Alex Burford and SVP, promotions Jane Arthy dissect the campaign and look ahead to what’s to come.

 

Can you share some of the thoughts behind the planning of the campaign? 

AB: “We wanted to have a very fan-focused strategy. With artists of Dua’s scale, everything can feel slightly untouchable and very big, but it's very important for us that the fans come first. The marketing strategy was driven through direct conversations with fans and revealing the key beats of the pre-release strategy, like revealing the title and artwork, was all directly done to fans and playing on the Houdini title, being able to unlock bits of information. And that felt like a massively impactful strategy because you go directly to the fans, and then fans spread the word on socials. We started with a new platform that drove people to sign up when we first started teasing and in the first week 100,000 people had signed up to her WhatsApp group. It allows for direct communication with fans that isn’t just about selling them stuff.  It's about engaging them in the campaign and making them part of the reveal.” 

JA: “We’ve quite conscious of positioning. The video is such an iconic pop video on one hand, but she’s also really down to earth and doing great content pieces with Greg James at Radio 1, for example, or turning up to the YouTube event for the video premier. It’s a perfect balance of being an iconic pop star and being very much available in the right way. We’re super selective with that availability, and obviously with an artist at this level you’re going to be limited in terms of time. We've always made, and will always make, a real effort to be loyal to the people who were there at the beginning, particularly with UK media where she broke out. We’re always keen to be really loyal.”

Why was Houdini the lead single?

JA: “To quote Dua pretty verbatim from a conversation last week, Houdini is first in a chronological run of stories that make up the album. Houdini references the most fun parts of singledom, when we’re out, we’re meeting people, we're having fun, we're in the club. And as the project progresses, the stories will continue to progress as well.”

How do you plan to capitalise on Houdini’s success? 

JK: “We want Dua’s campaigns to be long campaigns. We love day one success, but it’s not a North Star. We want her songs to be everywhere. We want her songs to be the finales of huge stadium shows. We want her songs to be number one radio records in multiple territories. We want her songs to go on and have viral moments. We want her songs to be sung at festivals. A successful Dua campaign is one that lasts a couple of years or more. We want more diamond records. We want streams of two billion plus. We want her to be the most streamed artist in the world.”

AB: “We went into the campaign thinking, ‘Judge us in two years’ and we want to have huge culturally important moments in that time, in the same way Future Nostalgia defined a particular time and became a really important album. The goal is not to have success in any one week, the goal is to change pop culture. 

JK: “And this isn’t the ravings of despotic label heads. This comes from Dua. I can’t tell you how energising it is for our whole team to work with someone who expresses, daily, what her ambition is.”

https://www.musicweek.com/labels/read/her-ambition-is-energising-joe-kentish-team-warner-salute-dua-lipa-s-return/088857

[Bling 31,039]

She deserves the best. I'm eager for the rest of the album but good luck changing pop culture. God knows we need it 

[Rat Boy 41,434]

She said: CULTURAL RESET

[Spartacus 4,485]

Giving "I want to take enough time to make sure it's the reinvention of pop music. That's the ultimate goal, to reinvent pop music. So I'm planning on taking as much time as I need, but May sounds about right." - Kesha on her album Warrior

[Spartacus 4,485]

Just now, Spartacus said:

Giving "I want to take enough time to make sure it's the reinvention of pop music. That's the ultimate goal, to reinvent pop music. So I'm planning on taking as much time as I need, but May sounds about right." - Kesha on her album Warrior

So good luck with that Dula Peep.

[Anderson123 35,595]

That’s really nice they’re excited, optimistic and proud about the work they’ve done. Just wish they’d let the music speak for itself. We know how these things go sometimes with creating high expectations. 

[monstertoronto 8,748]

21 minutes ago, RAMROD said:

JA: “To quote Dua pretty verbatim from a conversation last week, Houdini is first in a chronological run of stories that make up the album. Houdini references the most fun parts of singledom, when we’re out, we’re meeting people, we're having fun, we're in the club. And as the project progresses, the stories will continue to progress as well.”

How do you plan to capitalise on Houdini’s success? 

JK: “We want Dua’s campaigns to be long campaigns. We love day one success, but it’s not a North Star. We want her songs to be everywhere. We want her songs to be the finales of huge stadium shows. We want her songs to be number one radio records in multiple territories. We want her songs to go on and have viral moments. We want her songs to be sung at festivals. A successful Dua campaign is one that lasts a couple of years or more. We want more diamond records. We want streams of two billion plus. We want her to be the most streamed artist in the world.”

This chronological storytelling angle has me stoked. A fully realized and planned era. I’m so impressed with Dua and her team. 

And that second answer about them wanting her campaign to be a couple of years or more and all their ambitions for diamond records and 2 billion plus streams and number one radio records.  I hate to bring up Gaga but can you even imagine how gagged we would all be if that quote came from the Haus. 
 

[Rat Boy 41,434]

2 minutes ago, monstertoronto said:

This chronological storytelling angle has me stoked. A fully realized and planned era. I’m so impressed with Dua and her team. 

And that second answer about them wanting her campaign to be a couple of years or more and all their ambitions for diamond records and 2 billion plus streams and number one radio records.  I hate to bring up Gaga but can you even imagine how gagged we would all be if that quote came from the Haus. 
 

Meanwhile we’re struggling to get a film for a tour that ended 2 billion years ago.

[monstertoronto 8,748]

1 minute ago, Rat Boy said:

Meanwhile we’re struggling to get a film for a tour that ended 2 billion years ago.

Exactly. That was announced in June. 

[MelbHawker 6,583]

I love her ambition - her team sound a little too over the top though. I can’t wait for the album to drop, I like the direction / sound of Houdini, & she’s working with some of the best producers in the business.

[PunkTheFunk 123,480]

Well, good luck to her.

[LukiiGleek 173]

music is such a business in a way. The whole marketing around it is interesting. Very strategic. 

[steven 5,382]

I love how her management is excited about her career and has a clear vision on where she should go next. We sometimes forget how important a good team is required for an artist's success. 

[LaFama 4,300]

2 hours ago, monstertoronto said:

can you even imagine how gagged we would all be if that quote came from the Haus. 
 

We kinda did when they said they had spent 18 months planning the campaign for Chromatica and that it was one of the best rollouts ever, just to be hit with a pandemic and then they were only able to save some cookies and a wine brand deal. Will we ever win? 

[gumzy3000 6,924]

I feel like Future Nostalgia was such a big step up for Dua that this album will be more tame and fun in comparison. I'm not expecting next level pop music because Houdini was just okay, nothing groundbreaking in my opinion.

Either way, she has proved herself to be the most interesting major artist in years and I'm sure her next project will gain her a lot more fans, but maybe not that cultural moment/acclaim her management wants.