The Essential Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 2025
By Emily SmithDec 13
The BRIT Awards is the UK's premier music awards show, celebrating artists in twelve different categories each year.
Not surprisingly, many music fans go online to discuss their heroes being nominated, which this year included stars like Harry Styles, Lizzo, and Blackpink, to name just a few.
What were the highlights of the BRIT Awards 2023? Who did we root for? Which performances got the most buzz? And how did people feel about the nominees and winners as the veil was lifted before and during the show?
We'll cover all that and more, but first, let's look at the three most talked about celebrity outfits of the evening.
Highlights of the BRIT Awards 2023
Top red carpet moments
There’s no award show without a red carpet event. What moments stood out?
Harry Styles is in the house
Harry Styles’ first win happened already on the red carpet when his entrance became the most talked about moment of the red carpet event.
Harry wore a Nina Ricci outfit by designer Harris Reed, who later took to Instagram to thank the singer for wearing his gender-fluid piece.
Sam Smith's eye-catching outfit
Another red carpet appearance that was widely discussed was singer Sam Smith’s. They wore an undeniably eye-catching outfit with people online wondering how the artist would be able to move or sit down at all.
FLO and their matching gowns
Fans were stunned by the appearance of FLO, who won the Rising Star award and accepted their award on the red carpet. The R&B group wore matching outfits reminiscent of the good ol’ Destiny's Child days.
And speaking of Destiny's Child, the trio told red carpet hosts Nella Rose and Michelle Visage that Beyoncé knows FLO. Not surprisingly, this was a fact that fans happily discussed online.
And the BRIT Award goes to…Harry Styles!
Now onto the awards show itself.
During the BRIT Awards event from 8.30pm to 11 pm on February 11, 2023, there were over 353k mentions from over 98k unique authors. At its peak, people posted about the awards show 4,526 times in a single minute.
Looking at the actual conversation, there’s no getting around Harry Styles, who is the undisputed winner of the BRIT Awards 2023. The singer won every single award he was nominated for: Mastercard Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Best Pop/R&B Act. Naturally, this is reflected in online conversations.
A minute-by-minute breakdown of online mentions during the broadcast shows that the four highest peaks were from fans celebrating Harry Styles, starting with the highest:
- Harry wins Mastercard Album of the Year
- Harry wins Artist of the Year
- Harry wins Best Pop/R&B Act
- Harry wins Song of the Year
The singer has a huge fan base, and this tweet showing his reaction to winning Album of the Year got over 43k likes and more than 8k retweets:
Harry Styles' performance sparks joy
Harry Styles kept the online conversation going strong as he went onstage to perform his song As It Was, for which he won Song of the Year.
Also taking center stage were artists Cat Burns, David Guetta & Becky Hill & Ella Henderson, Lewis Capaldi, Lizzo, Sam Smith & Kim Petras, Stormzy, and Wet Leg.
Which performance was the highlight of the social conversation?
Harry Styles’ performance was not only the most mentioned during the show, but also the most positively mentioned. 80% of all mentions categorized by emotion expressed joy.
The performances of Stormzy and Cat Burns also received high levels of joyful conversation, with 76% and 74% of emotion-categorized mentions, respectively.
Host Mo Gilligan's slip-up introducing Lewis Capaldi
Mo Gilligan hosted the awards show for the second time. One of his most talked about moments was when he accidentally introduced singer Lewis Capaldi as Sam Capaldi.
Viewers immediately went online to check if they had heard correctly and soon began to pick up on the name. Lewis took it in good humor and responded to the mix-up with this tweet:
Top nominees: Harry Styles, Blackpink, and Lewis Capaldi
Looking at the nominated artists only, which ones sparked the most conversation online?
With four nominations and four wins for Harry Styles, his fans went wild and he was by far the biggest talking point of the BRIT Awards conversations this year. Blackpink fans were also very vocal this awards season, rooting for their favorite band to win.
Lewis Capaldi comes in third. Aside from fans discussing his nomination for Song of the Year and his performance at the show, Mo Gilligan's slip-up also led to many posts.
Here's an overview of the most mentioned nominees per category side-by-side with the the actual award winner of said category:
Announcing the nominations: A minute-by-minute breakdown
An equally interesting part of the conversation around the BRIT Awards happened in the weeks leading up to the event after the nominees had been revealed.
Let’s take a look.
On January 12 2023, the nominations for this year's BRIT Awards were announced at a livestream event.
A minute-by-minute breakdown of the online conversation gives us an idea of which moments generated the most buzz.
Which moments caused the highest spikes?
The announcement of the Mastercard Album of the Year nominations received the highest peak with 610 mentions per minute at its peak. In second came the announcement of the nominees for Best Pop/R&B Act with 570 mentions per minute at its peak.
The conversations slowed down somewhat after the announcements but people were still discussing the nominations even hours after the livestream.
The artist causing the biggest spike on nomination day was Harry Styles. Fans spread the news far and wide to celebrate their favorite singer.
Blackpink wins the buzz race before the awards show
The nomination for International Group of the Year generated by far the most online buzz in terms of overall mentions, followed by Artist of the Year, and Song of the Year.
The nomination of female K-pop band Blackpink as the best international group of the year made their fans more than happy. Blackpink is the first female K-pop band to get nominated for a BRIT Award, and their dedicated fanbase has been celebrating this milestone in a big way.
The influence of the band’s followers is also reflected in the most used emojis on nomination day, January 12, 2023: The black heart “🖤” and growing pink heart “💗” were prominent in online conversations.
Round up
From the red carpet and its eye-catching outfits to artists publicly praising each other, the BRIT Awards 2023 had it all. And the viewers loved it. 74% of all emotion-categorized mentions during the red carpet and broadcast expressed joy, and the red heart emoji "❤️" was the second most used emoji.
It's safe to say that music fans still love watching award shows and celebrating their favorite artists.
Header image credit: © JME Enternational