Northern Irish electronic duo Bicep (Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson) released their second album, Isles, on 22nd January through Ninja Tune. To promote it they have created an Instagram filter that twists and morphs the album cover art, where objects duplicate endlessly and flow psychedelically into the ether.
It was built by visual artist REO and fans were asked to use it to create some graphics of their own and tag the band when they uploaded them to their Instagram account.
The most creative and trippy images were selected by the band and used in a special video projection that was put on an assortment of buildings in London and the band’s hometown of Belfast on the day the album came out.
It was all done as part of a wider partnership with Amazon Music.
Many acts create filters for social media, letting fans play around with them and occasionally sharing the end results via Stories on their official Instagram account; but this is an interesting example of releasing the filter in advance and using the UGC from fans as part of the marketing creative.
The visuals on the campaign were conceived by Portuguese creative studio Degrau. “The elements of the campaign are dynamic as they are always created by freezing the movement of a specific event over time,” the Degrau team said in a statement. “The static images appeal to the memory of this action inducing a state of catharsis, in line with Dadaist long-exposure photography intersecting movements.”
REO said, “It was amazing to work with Bicep on this filter. I loved the cover art direction and how it aligned with some of the work I do. I am also a fan of Bicep’s music, so this was something I had to be a part of.”
Ninja Tune shared some numbers for use of the filter with Sandbox following the launch weekend of the album. It had over 707k impressions, over 130k opens, 62.8k captures, 7.9k saves and 10.7k shares.
“Matt and Andy’s creative vision is crystal clear,” said Tess Kendall, senior project manager at Ninja Tune. “They both have a background in design, so defining a unique and identifiable visual aesthetic is always at the heart of any Bicep campaign. We really wanted to find ways to engage and encourage the sense of community which runs deep within the fanbase during a time when we cannot gather, and we’re all missing being able to go out to clubs and dance. REO did a beautiful job of realising the artwork as an effect so that fans could interact with it and bring themselves into the Isles aesthetic. We decided to extend that creativity and acknowledge the community by projecting the fan content on buildings in London and Belfast – with the support of Amazon Music – and bring everyone together on release day.”
Maja Matacz, digital marketing manager at Ninja Tune, added, “The reaction was incredible. Fans have shared visuals from the camera effect filter over 10k times and nearly 400 fans submitted their videos to be used as part of the hour-long projections we ran on the evening of release day. As we didn’t reveal too much about the projections ahead of time, the fans loved the surprise of seeing their faces being projected onto those iconic buildings. Since the effect launched, we also saw Bicep gaining 17x more Instagram followers compared to their average in any given period.”
