Area21 is the alien-themed side project of EDM titan Martin Garrix and singersongwriter Maejor. After a standalone EP release in 2014, the project went dormant for seven years until, fittingly, they re-emerged in 2021 to release their debut album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1.

Contrasting with the black and white imagery of their 2014 EP, the new album saw Area21 team up with Disney Music Group and Titmouse Animation Studios to create a fully realised animated universe for the music to exist in, complete with names and narratives of Martin & Maejor’s alien alter-egos and over 30 other named characters.

Disney brought us in to work with Martin’s label STMPD to bring the world of Area21 to life on the digital stage in a truly out-of-this-world eightmonth release campaign.

After seven years of inactivity, we started the campaign with a relatively blank slate on the band’s socials. Fans knew something was coming eventually, but they never could have anticipated just how fully realised the world of Area21 was and would become. We kept Martin and Maejor’s names off of the entire project for the first six months and instead acted entirely in the character of their alien alter-egos, exploring and experiencing planet Earth for the first time.

We had the aliens (virtually) travel around the world throughout the campaign, from crash-landing in the Nevada desert to invading Las Vegas and evading police chase on second single ‘Pogo’, inhabiting a secret room in the Louvre, eventually conquering Hollywood and flying back home. Along the way, they also engaged with current events, including Jeff Bezos’s space flight, the 2020 Olympics, and, coincidentally, the most publicity that aliens and UFOs have had in years with the (eventually underwhelming) Pentagon report in June.

With the rich animated universe in place, we wanted to give more dedicated fans the space to immerse themselves in it, which is where the creation of the Area21 Discord server came in.

After having over 5,000 fans join the server on launch day, which doubled by release day, we treated them to a new community that expanded on the themes and characters of Area21, not only offering exclusive previews of new music, but also community engagement activations like PNG stickers to make memes out of, listening parties and daily conversations with characters from the A21 universe, especially from a very animated bunny character called Cotton Buddy.

Through the magic of Disney, we were also able to curate livestream Q&As using a revolutionary new technology that mapped 3D facial movements and body motions onto the 2D characters. Lead single ‘La La La’ also was the song chosen for TikTok to debut their new musicreactive green screen filter. And then, once festival season began, Area21 took the stage at Life Is Beautiful, iHeartRadio, EDC and more in full alien costume, finally bringing the project entirely to life.