o tease ODESZA’s first new music in four years, the team created an extensive week-long cryptic teasing campaign for the first single ‘The Last Goodbye’ feat. Bettye LaVette.

ODESZA mailed postcards to their top fans with a QR code and the text “IS THERE EVER REALLY A LAST GOODBYE?”. The QR code led to a text/mail signup which received over 12k text and email sign ups in less than 24 hours.

We uploaded a teaser snippet to Canvas on their top 10 streamed tracks on Spotify and added other easter eggs on their profile. ODESZA released Teaser 1 video fuelling the mystery which had 386k+ impressions in under 48 hours. Easter eggs in the source codes of the existing sites, leading to a longer version of the teaser. Fans uncovered that by texting ‘TLG’ to the signup number, they were sent a link to a 33-second reversed audio clip from Teaser 2.

We built a maze exploring the album songs and themes in the form of a website offering quests, clues, and rewards. Aimed at driving additional traffic and engagement, the website encouraged fans to collaborate, create UGC, piece clues together and find passwords to solve an extensive scavenger hunt.

Behind each track was a ‘quest’ fans needed to resolve to unlock a digital reward or the next quest. Clues scattered throughout ODESZA’s channels included traditional marketing activations, real-life locations, and tangible media such as CDs and cassettes.

Once all the tracks were unlocked, fans received a link to a collective online album release party and a raffle to win prizes. The main prize was a “fly in” trip to any of ‘The Last Goodbye’ live shows. Each activation was rolled out at a strategic moment in the campaign, to consolidate traditional marketing activities (such as radio, press, retail, outdoor etc.)

The website received almost 5k unique user sessions only one hour after launch and 10k after five hours. Upon the maze launch, over 1k fans were active in the Discord and 1k+ members were added to the Discord in the days leading up to the announcement.