The second campaign, built with the runway the first one didn't have.
Omjine returned for her second release under Ardito's management, this time with a working relationship already in place. Precious One had given both sides a sense of what a campaign actually involves, what she's comfortable with content-wise, and where the gaps in her own setup were.
KOMCA registration was already sorted from the first campaign. This time the groundwork was pitching infrastructure and lead time, not artist admin.
Sweethearting is about being told you're too much by someone who keeps charming you anyway. The refrain, "how dramatic, sweethearting me," carries the whole idea, someone playing along with their own criticism because the attention is still worth it. Sonically it moves toward Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The xx, a shift from Precious One's more sparse, Cat Power-leaning sound.
Where Precious One was a two week stress test, this campaign had roughly five weeks of lead time. That gap is the throughline of everything that follows.
Full pitches went out to UK radio and blogs, followed by individual Tuesday morning follow-ups rather than a single blast and silence. A separate Instagram DM push ran in parallel, direct outreach to radio stations and playlist curators who don't take email pitches. Around 40 posts went into UK-based Facebook music promotion groups, each one worded differently rather than copy-pasted.
Beyond the standard press list, outreach extended into Omjine's own academic network, old BIMM contacts, a former BIMM lecturer, and BIMM's alumni mailing list. Two Mailchimp sends went to her existing list, one pre-release, one on release day.
A Meta ads campaign was planned for the post-release window, £50 budget, Omjine funding it directly and paying, Ardito managing targeting and creative from her Meta Business account. Personal outreach to friends and family asking for streams and follows ran alongside everything else, a channel Precious One didn't lean on.
| Platform | Access |
|---|---|
| Spotify for Artists | Editor (Ardito) |
| Apple Music for Artists | Admin (Ardito) |
| YouTube | Manager |
| DistroKid | Direct — Omjine shared details |
| Mailchimp | Omjine added as user under Ardito account |
| Meta Business Suite | Laura added as second admin — Omjine owns the account and pays |
[Placeholder — drop in current streams, monthly listeners and save rate once the latest Spotify for Artists screenshot comes through. As of the most recent check, streams sat well below Spotify's 1,000-in-28-days threshold for display ads, which is its own result worth noting below.]
Unlike Precious One, this campaign landed real coverage. Amazing Radio gave it UK and USA airplay, a First Spin, and a top 3 place on the Audition Poll. Amazing Indie streamed it. BBC Introducing's upload was listened to by programming. Radio Wigwam, FBi Radio in Australia, and Gecko Radio all played it. A Korean Indie outlet ran a release-day feature, and ByteFM replied positively to a pitch written in German.
Listener geography also told its own story. London led the way, but Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore all showed up in the top cities, a direct reflection of Omjine's own background rather than a generic UK indie audience.
Precious One's 15 pitches got zero replies. This campaign, run with roughly five weeks instead of two, landed seven confirmed wins across radio and press. Same artist, same pitching quality, different runway.
Only Instagram photos were available this time round rather than a proper shoot. Workable, but not ideal, and confirmed early rather than discovered mid-campaign like last time.
Spotify's display ad tools need 1,000 streams in 28 days and Marquee needs 5,000 monthly listeners. An artist at this stage simply can't access either yet, regardless of campaign quality. Meta ads, where spend and targeting are fully controllable, became the only paid channel actually available.
Every confirmed placement on this campaign came from pitching, not advertising. The Meta ads budget is there to build on that momentum, not create it from nothing.
Soundplate, BIRP, and Indiemono submissions are still pending, queued for once momentum from this write-up settles. The Meta ads campaign runs through the post-release window rather than stopping at release week, tracking the full 28-day algorithmic cycle rather than just the first few days.
Working on a release? This is what a properly managed campaign looks like.
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