Sabrina's Spin on a "Surprise Song"

How this year's biggest artists have leveraged repeatable, scalable moments to drive success (and where brands are missing out)

Author

Ali Kaltman
November 17, 2024

Brand: Sabrina Carpenter

Campaign: Tour Marketing

Read time: 5 minutes

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Popular Pays by Lightricks. See more about how top brands scale influencer marketing below.

💬 Overview 💬

Tour content completely dominated social media this year.

From Charli XCX’s Brat Tour kick-off to Taylor’s Euro Eras summer and Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet, it seemed like every major artist was on the road.

I’ve loved watching all the tour-related content, but it's clear that some artists tapped into the power of social media far more effectively than others.

Taylor, of course, is the gold standard — fans obsess over (and dissect) every move she makes.

But Sabrina was a wildcard.

2024 was her breakthrough year.

And while she is successful for many reasons, there’s one thing she’s mastered…

(And she definitely learned a few things from her friend Taylor)

Let’s dive into it...

💙 The Branded Moment 💙

One could argue that Sabrina Carpenter’s fame skyrocketed as a result of the Olivia Rodrigo controversy.

(Yes. She is “THAT blonde girl” from her driver’s license song.)

But amidst controversy, many people rise and fall… fast.

Sabrina got some attention and managed to parlay it into something MUCH bigger…

About a year after the infamous Driver’s License song came out, Sabrina released Nonsense.

The song is a BOP.

And it just so happened to contain a very catchy outro.

In 2022, she decided to CHANGE her outro at the Atlanta concert, and the audience went nuts.

It then became a “thing”.

Show after show, she changed the outro to rhyme with the name of the tour city.

And it went viral. Every. Time.

People created videos just GUESSING what they next song would be.

When she eventually opened for THE Eras tour, it became one of the most shared moments from the show… from an OPENER!

This marketing approach clearly worked for her.

SO, when she released a new album this summer, she dropped hints that could be turned into tour moments — like the line "Have you ever tried this one?" in her song Juno.

During the tour, she takes that lyric literally, showing a different pose in each city.

Sabrina signing Juno in Ohio

I went to her Nashville show, and 4 friends asked what me for the Juno video.

Though Sabrina does a surprise song for each concert (yes, she learns a whole new song every night) the most shared moment is a 3 second clip in the middle of Juno.

So, what does this tell us?

💡 Results 💡

Sabrina’s tickets are going for hundreds of dollars over face value, but even more impressively, her tour content is EVERYWHERE.

It feels like influencers are fighting to see who can post her Juno pose fastest.

Her socials have grown over 22% in the last 6 months.

“Sabrina Carpenter” searches on Google over 5 years

And it feels like she is just getting started…

🎬 Take Action 🎬

REPEATABLE & SCALABLE CONTENT WINS

Give people a reason to guess what’s coming next and a reason to come back.

I NEED to know what surprise song Taylor Swift is doing. I NEED to know what Sabrina Carpenter did at her concert last night.

This type of content piques your curiosity and gives you a reason to come back.

Brands have not caught onto this yet the same way influencers & celebrities have.

What are snackable content formats you can create to bring back your brand fans? Can you tease something out on packaging and create content that brings people back?

How can you channel your inner ✨ Sabrina ✨ when working on your next product launch?

What’s New This Week

One new product I tried this week 👉 Swoon Pink Lemonade — a little sweet but I was a fan! Loved the ingredients.

One new campaign I’m loving 👉 OSMO x Carbone Yes chef.

One new piece of content I’m consuming 👉 Huge fan of Jay Clouse. He’s been a driving force behind the way I’ve set up my content.

P.S. How do you influence at scale?*

Brand marketing is hard enough. Managing each influencer individually is NOT something I’d recommend (and I've tried…)

Popular Pays by Lightricks is the ultimate platform for influencer marketing at scale.

You can choose from a pool of 100k+ creators and get high-performing influencer content for your brand and brief them at once.

Additionally, with SafeCollab (their newest feature), you can ditch the 4-6 hour process of manually vetting influencers and instantly check each creator's content, social history, and cross-platform presence for brand alignment.

Brandkeeping

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it on to 3 marketers you know!

And if you have a brand or campaign you want to spotlight, please reply directly to this newsletter.

Let’s chat!

See ya!

Ali

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