Tom Ewing from the e-zine Freaky Trigger, believed that "Say You'll be There" has a common theme with other pop songs, but pointed out the opening lines "Last time that we had this conversation / I decided we should be friends", as what sets it apart from their counterparts, as the song's main idea is that the choice is made by the female. Anna Louise Golden wrote in her book The Spice Girls, that the lyrics were another example of the group's Girl Power philosophy, as it mixed "interpersonal romance and personal strength". Release and promotion Virgin Records planned a major campaign for the group's debut to promote them as their new high-profile act. Ashley Newton, the label's head of A&R and other executives preferred "Say You'll Be There" to be released as the first single, as they considered it a "much cooler" track than the group's choice, "Wannabe". Fuller agreed with the label, but the group was adamant with their decision and refused. After a period of indecision about the release, Fuller and the executives at Virgin relented, and "Wannabe" was chosen as their first single. Brown mentions in her autobiography that the group was also indecisive about the choice for the second single; as "Love Thing" was considered at one point to be released instead. At the end of September 1996, "Say You'll Be There" was sent to British radio, and the accompanying music video added to the programming of MTV and The Box, while the Spice Girls were in Hong Kong doing a promotional tour in the Far East. At the beginning of October, the song started to receive intensive airplay across the UK, appearing on the playlists of 46 ILR stations—including Capital FM, and Radio 1 A-list. On 11 October 1996, the group performed the song on Top of the Pops and during the following week, did interviews and appeared on British television programmes that included The Chart Show, The Big Breakfast, The Noise, Live & Kicking, The O-Zone, Newsround, The Disney Club, After 5, WOW!, and GMTV. The single was commercially released in the UK on 14 October 1996 in three single versions. The first one, a CD maxi single included the single mix of the track, a remix by record producer Junior Vasquez, an instrumental take, and the B-side "Take Me Home", written by the group with Absolute. The second version, released in a