This story is part of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2022. Explore the full list of innovators who broke through this year—and had an impact on the world around us.
Shortly after Jena Rose, a 21-year-old singer from Texas, debuted her first single, “Checkmate,” last summer, her largely teenage fans launched a campaign to get her more airtime. They held nationwide Zoom parties during which they used social media to request the song on local stations and syndicated shows, with Rose popping into the virtual gatherings to cheer them on.
By March of this year, “Checkmate” had cracked Mediabase’s Top 40 chart of North America’s most-played songs on the radio; it also took off digitally, notching 9 million YouTube views and appearing in some 33,000 TikTok videos.
The campaign was the brainchild of Rose’s music label, Gem Street Music, a nearly year-old offshoot of the youth media juggernaut Sweety High Media, which includes a lifestyle website, growth agency, and influencer network aimed squarely at Gen Z. Frank Simonetti, who cofounded Sweety High with Veronica Zelle, says marketers—for music and other content—face a looming obstacle: standing out among a media-savvy generation.
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