Mike Shinoda exists on the cutting edge of the crossroads between tech and art, constantly pushing to embrace new technology in his creativity. This made the release campaign for his single “Already Over” a super exciting opportunity to experiment and engage with fans.

As we crafted our campaign strategy we looped in the amazing HiFi Labs to build something wonderful and strange - a massive community challenge themed around parasitic evolving 'Critters' crafted with delightfully horrifying eldritch tamagotchi vibes.

With this core experience cooking, our next task was to expand the narrative and craft an authentic way to get fans excited and funnel them into the game. To do this we developed a three-phase strategy:

The campaign kicked off with a sudden, glitchy takeover of Shinoda’s website and social platforms. Over three days everything was corrupted beyond use - with no comment from Mike. We’d kicked the beehive, and fans were wondering what was coming…

The following phase was a week long narrative teaser culminating in a creepy, otherworldly point-and-click experience to draw fans into the world we were building. Fans were hooked, hanging on every word of our faceless narrator. We had tens of thousands of blind signups within the first 48 hours.

When the full experience launched, a wave of fascinated users descended. The core experience was a delight, pairing off our "Caretakers” with their new little friends (who would definitely not become world-eating eldrich beings as you grew them) and massively supporting streaming and engagement.

Fans nurtured their randomly assigned "critter" by engaging with streaming and social platform challenges over 6 weeks, earning their rank on the community leaderboard, prizes and a personalized 1:1 digital collectible. This activation showcases the strength of a united community, using Spotify connect to incentivize official listening and collaborative playlist creation, highlighting fans coming together for a shared objective.