By Jules Ryan
THE CAMPAIGN
On October 19th, 2024, we celebrated the 80th Earthstrong of reggae legend and proud activist Peter Tosh. After his untimely passing in 1987, his family developed the Peter Tosh Foundation, and in celebration of 80 years of Peter Tosh, the Peter Tosh Foundation developed a live music and cultural display in Kingston, Jamaica surrounding the life and legacy of Peter Tosh.
Using organic social and paid media campaigns, we worked to engage and encourage reggae music lovers to join in the celebration of Tosh both in person at the Tosh Fest event and through online campaigns celebrating the life and music of Peter Tosh. With a cohesive brand kit created by Don Dada and graphic design assistance from Aelorae Qahlwyn The ultimate goal of the Peter Tosh Foundation was not only to drive ticket sales to Tosh Fest, but to spread the message of Tosh around the world and reach a new level of international awareness. Even though the festival itself was limited to those living in Jamaica and those with the capabilities of traveling to Jamaica, it was crucial to expand the festivities onto social media for reggae fans across the globe.
OUR ROLE
The bulk of this campaign lived on Instagram through 3 separate accounts: the main Peter Tosh account, the Tosh Fest JA account, which specifically gave updates about the live event, and the Peter Tosh Foundation account, which gave more detailed perspectives from the Foundation and a more personal account from the team members. We sought to create a cohesive feed that was visually separate from the rest of the account in order to memorialize the significance of Tosh 80, which was achieved using a cohesive brand kit created by Don Dada and graphic design assistance from Aelorae Qahlwyn. It was also important to drive fans to the merch store, so even those who weren’t able to be present at Tosh Fest were able to have a physical item to commemorate this moment in music history.
RESULTS
Overall, our Tosh 80/Tosh Fest campaign, spanning September 1st—>October 19th, successfully increased awareness, drove engagement and brought in new followers for Peter Tosh and the Tosh 80 event across all social platforms.
Our primary mode of communication was through Instagram, where we saw a net follower increase of 434 (+256.1% from previous period). The increase in posting, paid ad campaign, and significant collaboration posts (specifically with Sirius XM, the Tosh Fest artists, and our sponsors) led to our overall impressions increasing by 129.8%, with a total of 1,384,425 impressions. This increased awareness of Tosh is also reflected in our hashtag engagements: this campaign ended with #PeterTosh receiving 40.6K engagements and #ToshFest receiving 17.8K engagements. We also saw an increase in organic shares and story replies, showing that fans felt connected and engaged with the content we were sharing. Another avenue that positively impacted our impression rate was the amount of fan created content being shared on Instagram. Specifically, we saw posts from many notable influencers celebrating Tosh on October 19th (screenshots below).
Our Facebook page mirrored our Instagram page throughout this time and we saw similar analytical results. We reached 1,699,073 impressions (+82.7% from previous period), our follower count grew to 2,425,223 (+0.1% from previous period).
Despite Instagram being our primary mode for super fans to engage in the festivities, it was equally important for us to introduce younger generations to the legendary Peter Tosh using Tik Tok. TikTok is where we saw an increase in every analytical category, making this campaign extremely successful on this platform. We gained 196K views (+279.6% from previous period), our profile views increased by 176.7%, and we gained 8.8K new viewers with a total of 16K profile viewers. Our content reached many new potential audiences that we can continue to engage through future campaigns and encourage the younger generation to expand their awareness of the great musicians of the past.
Overall, from a social media standpoint, this campaign was extremely successful. We reached many new audiences that we can continue to engage with Tosh-centric content that focuses on his life, career, and legacy. This also gives the Peter Tosh Foundation an opportunity to expand their mission of activism in the name of Peter Tosh.
