Late January, The Pioneer was sent a curious surprise: hundreds of calendars and bookmarks with the singer Benson Boone as their focus. These posters were interesting, to say the least, especially since very few people actually knew who Boone was. However, the calendars still spread around the school and were seen in many places. Now, 2 months later, Benson Boone reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his song “Beautiful Things,” and I finally heard him on the radio. Even though the posters have (mostly) been taken down, I still wanted to discuss him and solve the mystery of these posters.
Benson James Boone was born June 25, 2002, and grew up with four sisters in Monroe, Washington. He discovered his musical talent during a performance for his high school’s Battle of the Bands. After high school, he briefly attended university before leaving to focus on singing. He began his singing career through his TikTok account, @bensonboone, which currently has 6.5 million followers. Eventually, he auditioned for season 19 of American Idol in early 2021. Even though he had only been singing for a year, he reached the top 24 but dropped out of the competition. He wanted to learn about himself as an artist before getting a large platform. He also said in an interview that he did not want people to think that “American Idol blew him up,” and he wanted to be known through his “smash hits.” Well, his plan seemed to work since I had no idea he was on American Idol, but I don’t think he expected people to know him from strange posters sent to high schools.
Boone began sharing snippets of his original music before releasing anything. Boone also caught the attention of Dan Reynolds, the lead singer for Imagine Dragons. Reynolds signed Boone to his record label, Night Street Records, in partnership with Warner Records. On October 15, 2022, this signing was announced, and Boone released his first single, “Ghost Town.” The single charted in 13 countries, including the US Billboard Hot 100. Since then, Boone has released 2 extended plays and 9 singles, including his most popular song, “Beautiful Things”. All of this success was before Boone even released his first album, Fireworks, and Rollerblades, which is scheduled for April 5. Even though it just began, Benson Boone’s singing career has already proved to be successful.
Now that we know a bit more about Benson Boone, we can talk about the interesting event centered around him. First, let us talk about what actually happened. The Pioneer received hundreds of bookmarks and calendars with Benson Boone on them. The image of Boone on the items is the same one he uses for his YouTube profile. The merchandise came with a letter from the company MOXIE. The letter said that MOXIE sent the new single for a potential review or broadcast and for our overall enjoyment. They also provided information for Boone and gave us information about the company, the company website, and the phone number. Our high school was not the only target of this stunt, as you can find many school newspaper articles about these strange posters. I found schools in Texas, Georgia, and Minnesota affected by Boone. There is even a TikTok by @gatsbyenjoyer about these posters, with 1.1 million views and dozens of comments from users mentioning their own experiences. This campaign seems to be widespread, but shockingly enough, it seems to have launched without Boone’s knowledge. In an Instagram story, Boone posted a photo of multiple posters and bookmarks with the text “Who made these.” To sum it up, we have a widespread campaign by the company MOXIE where posters and bookmarks are sent to high school newspaper clubs without the knowledge of Benson Boone, the focus of the campaign.
Even though I knew more about the posters and bookmarks, I wanted to answer Boone’s question and find out who made the posters and why they did it, so I decided to look into MOXIE. In the letter provided with the merchandise. MOXIE says it provides student newspapers, TV, and radio with current music and videos for reviews and broadcast consideration. It provides free concert tickets for prizes and fundraisers and brings artists on campus for shows and visits. The company says they worked with artists like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Katy Perry. From this description, it seems like the company is providing merchandise that can be given away as a prize, which is what the posters and bookmarks were from. The company also has a website, gomoxie.org, that provides a lot more information. Outside of Boone, MOXIE worked with Keedrona Bryant and Lil Huddy, while the artists mentioned in the letter are nowhere to be found. The company was created by two people in the music industry who were sick of seeing artists being overlooked due to a lack of exposure. The creators thought a large demographic, teenagers, were being overlooked. MOXIE was created to engage with teenagers and provide students with musical opportunities while also spreading the artist. From this description, while it does provide opportunities for teenagers, MOXIE seems to function as an advertising program for musicians.
Based on the information I found, I believe that these posters could be used for one of two things. I think that, based on the website, these posters are a way to advertise Benson Boone and get more people to learn about him while also providing students with merchandise. However, the fact that Boone did not know about these posters makes me think that MOXIE made and sent these posters without the help of anybody related to Boone and that these posters are a way to spread awareness about the company. Of course, this is just a theory, and these posters could very well be made with the help of a marketing team related to Boone without his knowledge. While the true purpose of these posters is a conundrum, I am confident one of my conclusions is correct. Overall, these posters are a strange occurrence that provides an interesting look into the marketing and music industry while exposing students to an artist they might not have heard of before.
