While influencer content moves on to the next big thing, traditional music licensing is notorious for dragging its feet.
When brands attempt to use mainstream music, they usually face a nightmare trio of obstacles: clearance processes, complex rights negotiations, and huge costs. Unauthorised usage carries penalties, with brands risking massive copyright lawsuits for improper track deployment.
This was the exact hurdle facing influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy when execution began on a Black Friday campaign for UK retail giant Argos. The creative ambition to turn a standard retail stockroom into an impromptu, high-energy rave starring the legendary UK garage crew Kurupt FM couldn't have been done without LICKD.
LICKD for Brands helps you de-risk music licensing, protect campaign budgets, and move at the speed of social culture without sacrificing campaign impact.
@argos 🚨 Presenting: STOCKROOM. We just shut down your local Argos on Wednesday night. BANG 💥
♬ original sound - Argos - Argos
How LICKD solved the problem
Real-world constraints quickly emerged. Production teams had limited ability to use live audio recorded directly at the venue, and the music licensing budget was strictly capped.
Rather than scaling back the vision, Billion Dollar Boy used LICKD for Brands to build a compliant audio strategy, and get their headline Kurupt FM track.
Campaign editors then layered this studio-quality audio beneath live MC vocals recorded during the stockroom rave. This hybrid approach helped create the feel of the live performance while keeping the content copyright compliant across TikTok and Instagram.
"We knew that in order to drive high-performing content that really landed the element of surprise, we needed strong audio to draw attention to the incredible artists we'd secured," Claudia Ledran, Senior Account Director at BDB explained. "LICKD were a critical partner, enabling us to seamlessly integrate a fully licensed, highly recognisable track without compromising the impact of the talent and ensuring the content achieved strong performance across both platforms".
The results sing for themselves
The campaign delivered exceptional engagement across all targeted platforms during the 10-day Black Friday run:
- 10x TikTok view uplift: Posts averaged ten times more views on TikTok compared to standard account benchmarks.
- 13M+ total impressions: Cross-platform video views surged past 13 million in just ten days.
- High engagement: Generated over 25,000 cross-platform engagements and more than 65,000 Thruplays.
- Retained audience growth: Content achieved strong retention signals through tens of thousands of full video completions, driving meaningful follower growth on both Instagram and TikTok.
Top-tier creator activations require audio that matches the caliber of the talent, and streamlining music clearance allows agencies to keep pace with social trends without sacrificing campaign performance or risking legal exposure.
About Lickd
Lickd is the only mainstream music platform giving creators claims-managed access to tracks from the world's biggest artists - music their audiences love, supercharging content growth without the copyright headache. Find out more at lickd.co
Lickd for Brands, a new service for 2026, gives brands and agencies mainstream music licensing at the speed of social. Licenses for organic branded content are pre-priced and cleared in 24-72 hours, while paid media, TVC, OTT, and CTV content is handled by an expert team and cleared on a case-by-case basis. Find out more at brands.lickd.co
