A few weeks after Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department”, music saw another massive album release with Billie Eilish’s new album “Hit Me Hard and Soft”.

This newsletter highlights:

• Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” album rollout

Let’s dive in ⬇️ 

The initial announcement

Billie Eilish started breaking records from the initial start of the campaign - on April 7th she uploaded a video on Instagram teasing the new album. The video would go on to break the record for the most viewed video on IG by an artist in 24 hours (the video currently sits at 152 million views).

One day later, she formally announced the new album with the title and release date.

Coachella

In March, Eilish made a surprise appearance during Lana Del Ray’s Coachella set performing “Ocean Eyes” and “Video Games”. Coachella is one of the biggest stages in the world and a big milestone ahead of the new album.

Press

To raise awareness for the album before it came out, she made the cover of Rolling Stone on April 24th. She then went on a press run, sitting down with Apple Music, Stephen Colbert, triple j, and more.

Tour

On April 29th, she announced her nationwide “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour - with over 60 dates, the tour spans across the United States, Europe, Australia, & more.

Album release day 

Album Release Day saw a bunch of activations across social media and streaming platforms, including the below:

Lunch music video

Billie Eilish dropped the Lunch music video on release day (it’s still trending #3 on YouTube).

Soundcloud - Day One activation

To celebrate her day-one fans and early success on Soundcloud, Billie Eilish partnered with Soundcloud for a campaign that highlighted her individual fans.

The landing page shows a timeline of Billie’s success on Soundcloud and displays the Soundcloud profiles of some of her earliest fans.

TikTok

It was only right the new album had a big presence on TikTok.

TikTok supported in a big way with a custom profile frame that fans can unlock, in-app banners, and more. The custom profile frame had call to actions for fans to follow Billie Eilish’s profile, Billie Eilish Home, & more.

Products 

This was one of the coolest parts of the rollout to me. Instead of just selling regular CDs, Billie Eilish personally painted a select amount herself, filmed it, and is offering a limited quantity to fans.

Other physical products include exclusive vinyl with Walmart, Urban Outfitters, & Target.

The merch rollout also included custom merch with Bitmojis on Snapchat.

IRL

Not one to keep her album rollout just online, Billie Eilish held massive listening parties at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY and the Kia Forum in LA.

The rollout also included a pop-up in partnership with Complex for the entire weekend in LA selling limited edition album goods.

Radio

Ahead of the album release, SiriusXM gave Billie Eilish her own station called Billie Eilish Radio to hear “stories from the new album”.

Recap timeline

4/9 - Spotify presave launches

4/10 - pre-order painted CDS launch

4/13 - Target exclusive vinyl for pre-order launch

4/15 - Walmart + Urban Outfitters exclusive vinyl for pre-order launch

4/15 - long sleeve crop tops pre-order goes on sale

4/16 - vinyl pre-order goes on sale

4/17 - CD pre-order goes on sale

4/23 - Plays Fortnite Festival

4/24 - Rolling Stone cover goes live

4/29 - tour announcement

5/3 - tour tickets on sale

5/10 - SiriusXM launches Billie Eilish radio

5/10 - Merch for Bitmojis on Snapchat launch

5/13 - Netflix synch announcement

5/15 - Barclays listening party

5/16 - LA listening party at Kia Forum

5/17 - album release + Lunch music video release

5/17 - 5/19 - Pop up in partnership w/ COMPLEX

The album is currently slated for a first week forecast of 300,000 units.

Thanks for reading, until next time.