For alt-J’s third album, Relaxer, the artist’s creative was based on the 1998 videogame, LSD Dream Emulator – a cult Japanese game envisaged as one of the first videogame art projects and based on its developer’s “dream journal”. With this strong concept, we licensed imagery from the game and worked with visual artists to create unique teaser content on social media.

Alongside this, snippets of historical code languages were used on socials for fans to decipher ‘in video’ content and in the source code of altjband.com. The fanbase was hugely engaged, creating microcosms of fan conversation – reaching almost triple the existing social following organically over the teaser and announcement campaign.

Working with design agency Another Kind, we replicated an entire level of LSD Dream Emulator on altjband.com to create an interactive visual experience to flesh out the design concept and create an atmospheric world. Entirely mobile focused, fans could navigate around the site to find bonus content, teasers, stems and sound effects from unreleased songs, rewarding engaged fans and capturing them for specific retargeting.

We also used media partners to reflect this creative style; for example, an exclusive video launch with WeTransfer to their network of creatives, showcasing the video, but also offering an in-depth interview with the band on their creative video commissioning process.

Thanks to BMG’s in-house advertising system, wide targets and engaged fans from previous album campaigns were segmented out to push awareness content or early pre-orders to specific fan groups. Each group was monitored and optimised on a day-by-day basis and all data remains within BMG.

Our sales team engaged with leading digital retailers and streaming services as early as possible to set up features and editorial support on a global basis, with a focus on key markets.

Apple Music created an alt-J super room, featuring an interview with the band – one of the first times such a feature had run.

Spotify supported through playlists, mobile marquee and an outdoor advertising campaign; they also ran homepage takeovers in various territories using animated visuals from the ‘In Cold Blood’ video. Spotify created boutique content, including a “gamified” Facebook canvas marketing plan.