Client: Karen Lee Batten
Tasks: Publicity, Grant Writing, Personal Branding
In the fall of 2019, Canadian country artist Karen Lee Batten first hired NovaCurrent Public Relations to prepare her application to Creative BC/Amplify BC Career Development program.
We worked with Karen Lee Batten on all aspects of the initial application – including the project plan, all supplementary materials, and assistance with team building for the intended project.
Karen Lee Batten was approved for funding by Creative BC/Amplify BC in January of 2020. The funding was used for the sound recording, videos, and promotion of the singles, “Too Strong” and “Drinkin’ Song”.
In the fall of 2020, we continued our work with Karen Lee Batten to create a new website presence to properly showcase her new music and the new visual identity for her brand.
In October of 2020, Karen Lee Batten’s new website was completed and launched ahead of her new single, “Too Strong” as a single-page website highlighting her past releases, photos, and career accolades.
After being chosen to lead Karen Lee’s new publicity strategy, we worked with her on the first single, “Too Strong” in 2020. As her first original music since 2014, this campaign served to rebuild her brand awareness in BC but also expand her awareness in other Canadian markets.
The “Too Strong” publicity campaign earned over 35 media interviews and features for Karen, including CTV Morning Live Vancouver, Global News Morning Kingston, Langley Advance Times, Aesthetic Magazine, Canadian Beats, Medium, VENTS Magazine, The Partae, The Country Startpage, The Reviews Are In, Front Porch Music, and Rudy Blair.
In the fall of 2020, we completed an application with Karen Lee Batten to the FACTOR Artist Development program in preparation for her next single, “Drinkin’ Song”.
NovaCurrent worked with Karen Lee on all aspects of the application – including the artist development plan along with the supplementary materials.
Karen Lee Batten was approved for funding by FACTOR in the Artist Development program in 2021. The funding was used towards the music video production costs for “Drinkin’ Song” as well as the accompanying publicity campaign.
In 2021, Karen Lee released her next single, “Drinkin’ Song”. For this campaign, we decided to expand her audience on a greater level internationally.
The publicity outreach for “Drinkin’ Song” garnered over 40 interviews and features – most notably television performances on CHCH Morning Live, The Hampton Roads Show, and Today in Nashville, a digital performance for SCENES, an Instagram Takeover of The Country Note, interviews for Worlds of Country, Hometown Country Music, and music video placement on CMT Australia. Karen Lee Batten would go on to win the BCCMA Female Artist of the Year Award in 2022 and the Indie Country Artist of the Year Award at the Jim Beam Indies at Canadian Music Week.
In the fall of 2022, NovaCurrent Public Relations re-teamed with Karen Lee Batten for another grant application to the Creative BC/Amplify BC Career Development Program.
We worked with Karen Lee on the project plan portion of the application while also assisting with supplementary materials creation and building the proposed project team.
In February of 2023, Karen Lee Batten was approved for funding by Creative BC/Amplify BC. The funding will be used for the sound recording, videos, and marketing related to a series of new singles and a full album release.
