How Capital generated millions of views with the Jingle Bell Ball: the strategy explained
2 nights of concerts in London, 20 artists, almost 70 extracts broadcast in short versions and almost 80 long videos on YouTube. Capital made a maximum of content in a minimum of time during its annual concert.
What is the Jingle Bell Ball?
The Jingle Bell Ball is Capital Radio’s big annual concert, held every December in London. The event has been bringing together international pop stars every year since 2008. They have already welcomed some of the biggest stars: Shakira, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus, Coldplay… In 2025, they welcomed Ed Sheeran, RAYE, Anne-Marie, Leigh-Anne, Kylie Minogue, Louis Tomlinson, Tinie Tempah, Alex Warren… The line-up changes between Friday and Saturday. So we have two totally different evenings.
360° broadcasting
To attend or see the concert, Global (Capital’s parent company) makes fans stay within its ecosystem. The concert is announced about a month in advance, and you have to listen to the radio to get the line-up. To get tickets, you have to use the app. To follow the concert, you have to watch or listen to it via the same app. They are also broadcasting directly on their official YouTube channel.
Discover the most viewed videos of the week from 32 European radio stations
Both short extracts and longer videos are available on all platforms: Insta, TikTok, YouTube…
Performance, off and react: the 3 types of content created for the ceremony
As with the NRJ Music Awards, Capital radio relies on a clear and effective triptych: the official to show the stage, the off to tell what’s going on around it and the react to prolong the event after the live show.
Performances : the heart of the operation
The performances are the editorial foundation. All the content has to revolve around that. That’s the whole point of the concert: to see the artists. Capital works on two distinct channels: YouTube hosts the performances and sequences in their entirety, well filmed and referenced. Shorts, on the other hand, are used to extract the right moment, at the right time, with the right title, in order to go viral as much as possible. It’s the loss leader that’s going to win over the public and bring them back to the official content. What makes the difference is the choice of passage: you have to choose the right moment. In this edition, the most viral sequence was that of Raye with the presence of his sister on stage.
Other hits included a nostalgia performance with Little Lix singer Leigh-Ann covering one of their songs.
The official offsites: behind the scenes footage
There are two levels of off. The first is the official off, with photocalls and backstage interviews. The content is clean, expected, necessary but not very distinctive. We ask the artist how their performance went or how they found the audience. We take advantage of this to find the concept interviews we’re going to do with all the artists. Offbeat, memorable content that we hope will catch on. For Capital, they had their famous ‘Junket Queen Mother’ Grime Gran, who was able to chat with Ed Sheeran and even Jessie J.
The backstage interview was managed by the morning show hosts. Each guest had his own concept, and they got Kylie Minogue to eat corned beef hash:
The hosts also gave a behind-the-scenes account of the evening in short, scripted vignettes:
The real off: what we really want to see
Let’s talk about the real off. It’s about being a little mouse, iPhone in hand, letting situations happen, without comment or editing. The content that works best is spontaneous encounters between artists or moments of observation, like actor Harris Dickinson watching his girlfriend Rose Gray on stage. These are very raw videos, but they can get millions of views.
We had a few more videos produced of the artists just before they took to the stage:
Finally, we also had this concept of a fixed webcam backstage, where all the artists played with it. Perfect for making a best-of after the show.
The react :
Finally, react gives a second life to the concert. Either by asking the artists to debrief their own footage on the spot, or by producing cold, more editorial content. Capital has activated this lever with a special episode of its podcast “After the Show, The Show” entitled La réalité du Jingle Bell Ball. In it we learn some funny anecdotes from backstage, such as Sean’s dress, which she almost tore before going on stage. A long audio-video podcast episode broadcast on YouTube
To immortalise the event, you can share the photos and add your own comments – timeless content that sets the event in stone.
Brand content
In addition to the branding of the event by Barclay Bank, I found two branded contents:
Disney for the release of Zootopie :
The Boots brand for a Get Ready :
