Hannah Chadwick has told Music Week that hearing The Beatles’ Now And Then for the first time was a “goosebumps moment” for Universal Music Recordings staff.
Chadwick, director of marketing for UMR in the UK, was speaking to Music Week in the wake of picking up the Catalogue Marketing Campaign trophy at this year’s Music Week Awards.
UMR has triumphed in the category four years running, winning for Bob Marley in 2021, The Spice Girls in 2022 and ABBA in 2023.
Now And Then, The Beatles’ last ever recording, debuted at No.1 upon release in October 2023 and has racked up 225,956 sales to date, according to the Official Charts Company.
“The first time we got to hear it was… goosebumps,” said Chadwick. “It was amazing, it was incredibly emotional and you felt a real connection.”
“There is only one band in the world that can make a statement like this and it was a once in a lifetime cultural moment,” Chadwick added. “There will never be another opportunity for us to work on something like this so we wanted to create a real moment.”
Catalogue is about telling the story behind the song and creating a narrative for generations to understand
Hannah Chadwick, UMR
Chadwick highlighted the importance of the 12-minute film that accompanied the release of the song, premiering on BBC One’s The One Show.
“It was all about the story and how it had been many years in the making,” she said. “There was a 12-minute film that brought it to life, and that’s what we’re trying to do in catalogue, tell the story behind the song and create that narrative for generations to understand.”
Chadwick said that the campaign succeeded in bringing the band to a new generation.
“There’s this idea of, ‘who doesn’t know The Beatles?’ but there are people who don’t and we want to bring them into the story and let them discover them for the first time, which is what this campaign did,” she said. “With every catalogue campaign, you always approach it by asking what the story is and what you want to tell the audience to make them come on a journey with you.”
