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Griffin Haddrill is the co-founder and CEO of the leading viral marketing agency, VRTCL. Alongside business partner Sean Young, VRTCL was founded in 2019 providing marketing services for some of today’s most popular artists and record labels such as Universal Music, Warner Records, Sony Music, showing them how to best utilize TikTok and execute campaigns to optimize records performance and brand activity among its global user base.
Prior to VRTCL, Haddrill was a talent manager, signing songwriters and producers who worked with the likes of Karol G, Kevinho, Travis Porter, Riff Raff, among others. Haddrill also represented world-class DJs such as ATLiens and Tisoki who perform at major global music festivals, including Coachella, Electric Daisy Carnival, and Bonnaroo.
In this episode, Griffin breaks down how Glass Animals, Adele, Justin Bieber, Lil Nas X, and The Weeknd leveraged TikTok to crack the Billboard 100 with their new songs.
He also discusses the importance of indie musicians embracing TikTok, VRTCL’s approach to getting TikTok trends to catch, and how to get your music to go viral on the platform.
02:43 VRTCL’s charting songs on Billboard
06:27 Influencers and viral marketing
09:23 Where VRTCL comes in
10:27 Working with Glass Animals
12:28 Business relationship with influencers
16:37 Influencers within VRTCL’s network and rates
20:09 Micro vs. macro influencers
21:51 User generated content (UGC)
23:18 TikTok’s hook
25:49 Choreographic trends
29:10 Working with Labels vs. Management vs. Artists
31:00 How to inspire artists to embrace TikTok
35:11 How to get your music to go viral
38:23 Audio recognition, unauthorized “original sound” remixes and DSPs
44:32 Tech vs. music’s intellectual property
46:41 Marketing investment and bridging success
48:59 Booking agents and touring artists
52:36 Geo-targeting vs. Ads
53:26 Tips for artist getting started on TikTok
55:45 Final question
