Nearly six years after Ed Sheeran hired the Barfly in Camden and tweeted that he was going to play a free gig there – all part of his tremendous plan to get on the radio – he was at it again, using the power of the internet to boost his career.
This time on a different level and with a few sales of tickets and albums under his belt, Sheeran was true to his philosophy:
“I love creating,” he said during his appearance on Desert Island Discs, “and there is no business mind on my mind when I’m making an album, and I make the album I want to make.
“But when it’s finished, and it’s all handed in and it’s all mastered and in its packaging, why not want to make that the biggest album in the world? Why not put your business head on and be like, ‘Right, let’s make sure everyone hears this because I’m so proud of it’?”
He put that philosophy to work brilliantly when promoting his single, Thinking Out Loud.
“A music video is one of the most powerful things to get a song out there.
And a music video that can go viral is like gold dust.” – Ed Sheeran
Sheeran’s desire to surprise led him to make a video that became a talking point. “It made people share it,” as he put it.
Those shares have contributed to the video’s more than 3.5 billion views and the huge success of the double Grammy-winning single itself
