Background: Palo Santo is a fictional world, which could be in the future or a parallel universe, where most humans have died out and androids populate the earth. Olly [Alexander, lead singer] is one of the few remaining humans; he’s discovered and brought to Palo Santo, where he performs daily and becomes a celebrity. The main digital touchpoints of the campaign include:

• Teasing new music and launching Y&Y2 through launching the band’s own digital alphabet

• Fully integrated messenger bot that guided you through the campaign and even sent you dance tutorials from the videos

• Vevo Originals content series that recreated the world in its entirety

• PSEN CCTV website led by voice navigation

• Cross-platform album tracklist reveal campaign to #FindPaloSanto

• Influencer marketing campaign touchpoints throughout

• YearCoin – the band’s own backstreet ‘cryptocurrency’ exchange to drive fan engagement

• Multiple bespoke Snapchat lenses on album release

• Facebook AR camera effect album sampler– the first of its kind in music

• Bespoke native content; created for all platforms throughout the campaign, including an unmissable QVC-style shopping channel advert presented by Olly himself.

We kicked off Y&Y2 by warming up the audience with a series of bespoke video assets featuring footage from previous official videos, with a mysterious aesthetic and cryptic clues written in a brand new language of alphabetic symbols.

To reignite the CRM database, we then teased new footage of Olly in a mysterious location and incentivised fans to sign up to the mailing list to receive a voice note from Olly for further clues. This drove 5k new mailing list subscribers.

Following this, we launched the Palo Santo Entertainment Network Sever – the band’s official Facebook Messenger bot, built in conjunction with TalkBe. This is the official communication centre of the fictional city of Palo Santo, with public service messages being delivered to androids and humans alike.

We revealed the album tracklist via a cryptic digital treasure hunt led by Instagram Stories across all social platforms, wrapped with #FindPaloSanto. Fans were invited to gather online to help #FindPaloSanto via a cryptic mailer written entirely in Palo Santo symbols, which they quickly deciphered. The hunt then led fans through a series of clues across the band’s social channels, all led from Instagram Stories.

To amplify the pre-order launch, we also launched an influencer campaign with relevant UK LGBT influencers, introducing them as Humans Of Palo Santo, with Palo Santo-style playing cards. Each influencer posted their own bespoke playing card – which detailed their history and role within Palo Santo – to their Instagram Stories, tagging the band and the name of the album. Influencers included Detox, Jodie Harsh, Felicity Hayward, Munroe Bergdorf, Leomie Anderson, LookingForLewys, Kyle De Volle and more. Combined reach: 1.3m followers.

We launched an official ‘cryptocurrency’ of the Palo Santo human rebellion: YearCoin. Fans could mine and spend YearCoin by carrying out a range of actions on a bespoke website built by Modern English – saving Y&Y tracks on Spotify, watching/ sharing official videos, sharing encrypted messages in Palo Santo symbols on social media and more. By saving enough coins, fans could purchase their own personalised Palo Santo ID card.