For the release of Skepta’s Ignorance Is Bliss, The Orchard had only six weeks to create a global campaign. Skepta and his management team had a very strong vision of the aesthetics for the record and it was The Orchard’s job to help amplify this.

In order to heighten anticipation for the album’s release, a short 15-second teaser video was made featuring a looped intro of the then-unreleased track ‘Grease Mode’. This was the first taste of new material that fans would hear and was served against engagement audiences for Skepta across Facebook and Instagram and to anyone who had watched Skepta’s videos historically on YouTube.

One of the main activations that Skepta wanted was a live global streaming map that fans could access via his website. Although similar maps had been built by the services to house within their own platforms, this was the first time an artist has shared this information publicly across multiple services and housed in the same place. Skepta then encouraged fans to stream the record to see how the map reacted.

The Orchard partnered with Wayward Creative to build the map using The Orchard’s Analytics Team and internal dashboards to work out a solution to input data into the map. Over the course of several weeks the map was optimised to ensure it loaded at slow speeds and across mobile and desktop.

Once the album was announced sales were driven via a multi retailer link and Skepta’s D2C store. Using Skepta’s store allowed us to optimise for custom conversions enabling us to track actual sales rather than just clicks.

Skepta teamed up with Amazon Music to recreate the thermographic album art in real time at street level. Diabolical provided the technology for fans to map themselves onto a billboard sized screen for 12 hours right outside Shoreditch High Street station in London. Skepta and his brother JME came down to try it out for themselves, too!

Spotify threw a launch event for friends, family and some of Skepta’s biggest fans. Taking over White Rabbit, Spotify kindly branded the whole room around the album creative, themed drinks, DJs and a branded photo booth. Skepta also performed a surprise set comprising of album cuts.

Skepta was happy to discuss more than usual about the album and the ride he had since Konnichiwa on this campaign. To harness this, he teamed up with YouTube Music to do a live streamed Q&A from their space in St Pancras. Hosted by Tiffany Calver, the 30-minute Q&A covered all topics from collaborators, fatherhood and his plans for the future.