These Billboards for Drake's New Album Are a Marketing Coup

Rapper, actor and entrepreneur Drake is no stranger to the concept of out-of-home advertising. He's utilized billboards to promote new music and concerts—as well as congratulating Rihanna—since 2011. With his latest album release, Certified Lover Boy, the Canadian artist took the OOH route again. This time, he's highlighting album cuts by plastering every featured artist's name in their home city. The campaign kicked off Sept. 1, two days before the album's release. A bit of mystery was incorporated into the effort, with certain phrases and names teased out in advance. The billboards sported lines like, "Hey New York, The GOAT is on CLB" that kept fans guessing which guest artists had made the final track list of the album. Several brands were involved in the placing of the billboards, including music streaming platform Spotify, satellite radio service SiriusXM, Drake's record label Republic Records, and Drake's two imprints, OVO Sound and Frozen Moments. A Restaurant Kicks Off a Rebrand by Inserting Itself in Drake and Kanye’s Billboard Beef Driving impressions All of the ads were bought through outdoor advertising marketplace MilkMoney and placed in various cities including Drake's hometown of Toronto and as far afield as Lagos, Nigeria. OVO and MilkMoney declined comment for the story. Lamar Advertising posted billboards in Memphis and Cleveland for a 19-day campaign and generated 599,447 impressions, according to the company. New Tradition Media put up billboards promoting the album in New York, L.A., Atlanta and Miami, which garnered over 32.4 million impressions combined, the company said. Rahim Wright is a partner and co-founder of The 740 Project, an independent marketing firm, record label and publisher. He’s worked on various marketing efforts for artists including Migos, Megan Thee Stallion and Lil Baby. Wright sees billboards as a vanity endeavor for artists. “Billboards in the hip-hop and R&B community are a flex,” he told Adweek. “They're still a status symbol” reflecting a sense of accomplishment for the artist, as well as boosting his status among peers, media and fans. You used to share me on your cellphone For Drake, another benefit of the billboards was their shareability, helping the campaign go viral. There were a total of 22,000 social media posts over two months that collectively generated 482,000 engagements, with more than half of those happening between Sept. 1-3, according to social analytics platform Infegy Atlas. “By highlighting the hometown heroes, he prompted a slew of social media posts—generating over 13,000 posts in one day on Sept. 2,” said Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer at independent agency Mekanism. “This created an echo chamber. Overnight, everyone was talking about Drake online and offline. This in turn prompted more coverage and conversation.” Drake received additional free promotion from numerous blogs and news sites speculating about the album. That led to various memes, including one from Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, that added to the discussion. According to Lamar, the Drake billboard campaign drew over 2.1 million likes on Instagram alone. Of course, the featured artists were eager to share the campaign as well. Rapper Travis Scott shared the Houston billboard on his Instagram stories to his over 43 million followers. Rapper Lil Wayne—who signed Drake to his record label Young Money in 2009—shared Drake's Toronto billboard to his 34.8 million followers on Twitter. "[Drake] knew that putting these big featured artists up in their cities you're shouting them out," Wright said. "You're making them look like the kings and queens of their city. And then, in turn, you're going to gain impressions from them reposting it." That created a two-pronged strategy: drawing foot traffic with large billboards globally, while also catching attention with a viral social media moment. Not everyone can do it Drake's marketing team had a long time to plan for the album's launch—and found ways to draw it out in moments modest and impressive. The title of the album was revealed in October 2020. Since that announcement, Drake literally branded himself by cutting a part into his hair shaped like a heart. Then there was the time had Dodger Stadium all to himself for a private date. All of these moves connect back to the image of a Certified Lover Boy. “[Drake] just stayed in character,” he said. “Everything from the haircut to the emojis [on the album cover] ... kept everything understated.” Certified Lover Boy debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart of most popular albums in the U.S. with 613,000 sold in its first week. That was the highest one-week figure on the charts in over a year. Rapper Lil Nas X also ran OOH ads recently and generated major interaction on social for his debut album Montero. Though it wasn't on the level of Drake (670 social media posts and 64,000 engagements, according to Gahan), it shows that certain artists can build social conversations with OOH marketing in multifaceted ways. Still, there aren't many who can drive social discourse or pop culture with a billboard the way that Drake did. "I don't think that everyone could get away with the tool," Wright said. "With Drake, it's partially because he's Drake. And also because the music is really good and he's got a lot of fans and a huge machine [behind him]." The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Goes from TikTok to Concept Album, Live Performances

Performance Marketing

Just Hold On, We're Out of Home: Drake Takes OOH to Social Media for New Album

To promote Certified Lover Boy, billboards went up highlighting guest artists in their home cities

Rafael Canton

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Rafael Canton