Spice Girls album of 1997 and was certified 8× Platinum by the IFPI for sales in excess of 8 million copies. That same month the Spice Girls attracted a crowd of 500,000 when they switched on the Christmas lights in Oxford Street, London. At the same time, Simon Fuller started to set up million pound sponsorship deals for the Spice Girls with Pepsi, Walkers, Impulse, Cadbury's and Polaroid. In December 1996, the group won three trophies at the "Smash Hits" awards at the London Arena, including best video for "Say You'll Be There". In January 1997, the group released "Wannabe" in the
Spice Girls trial airing on music channel The Box. The video was an instant hit, and was aired up to seventy times a week at its peak. After the video was released, the Spice Girls had their first live TV slot on broadcast on LWT's "Surprise Surprise". The first music press interview appears in "Music Week". In July 1996, the group conducted their first interview with Paul Gorman, the contributing editor of music paper "Music Week", at Virgin Records' Paris headquarters. His piece recognised that the Spice Girls were about to institute a change in the charts away from Britpop and towards