The Walker Excavations is a gaming experience created by Sony Music Entertainment to launch artist Alan Walker's latest album. It's a piece of contemporary entertainment that uses new technology to push the traditional music video category into a new, exciting space where fans aren't just listening and watching, but engaging and sharing their experience too. This is an entertainment first idea, built for the entertainment industry in the twenty first century.

Alan Walker is a Swedish electronic music artist. As Alan's label, we were tasked with launching his new album internationally. A category that has, in recent years, become more and more competitive. But as important as this launch was, we didn't have a 'big artist budget'. Luckily, Alan has a very active online fan base, with a passion for gaming. A tribe of 'Walkers' who has created a legend around him and his music on social media called 'The World of Walker'.

For the release of his album, we needed an idea that could leverage his online community, earn us an unfair share of the electronic music conversation, and expand his fan base. It also needed to convert fans to Sony Music customers by making sure they streamed the tracks, watched the music videos or digitally purchased them from online music stores.

Since much of the social legend of 'World of Walker' remains a mystery, we decided to let fans find the answers themselves by turning Alan Walkers upcoming music videos into an interactive gaming experience called The Walker Excavations.

To unlock new levels in the game, and gain access to the full story of the music videos, fans were sent on an elaborate scavenger hunt around the Internet, looking for clues that could help them advance in the game. Some of the harder challenges also unlocked exclusive behind-the-scenes content, limited edition merchandize drops, and pre listenings for upcoming songs.

To promote the game, we brought some of the characters from the music videos to life. On their social media accounts they gave fans clues in real time, blurring the lines of the real world and The World of Walker.

As one of the major record labels in the world, Sony Music Entertainment has seen many trends in the music video genre over the years. But the basic concept never changed. It has aways been a passive experience. And all though the music video category has not changed much in the past decades, the audience has. The new generation of fans is used to interacting and engaging with their content. Sharing it with friends and even making it their own. Alan Walker's fanbase is no different. In fact they have been wanting to be part of his work for a while. So much so that they created an online legend around him. So when Alan Walker was ready to launch his new music album, we decided to create something they could be part of, and that would redefine the music video genre for this generation.

The Walker Excavations is an interactive, web based 3D gaming experience that asks players to complete various challenges to progress in the game, and eventually take down the super villain -Red Nexus. Each challenge required players to go on an elaborate scavenger hunt across The Internet and immerse themselves in the original 'World of Walker' legend to find answers. Only then could they complete the challenges and unlock the next chapter in the music video trilogy and, in some cases, upcoming tracks and limited edition merchandise. The challenges also integrated and made full use of mobile devices' built-in features such as gyroscope and camera functions, creating an open-world gaming experience for players to explore over and over again. The advanced technology made it possible to give fans a state-of-the-art experience from any smart phone anywhere in the world, straight in the browser.

The Walker Excavations quickly took on an online life of its own. Alan Walker fans shared in-game videos on every relevant social media platforms, and discussed the plot twists and possible links to the larger world of Alan Walker that we hadn't even thought of. Eventually players even worked together to take down the main villan of the game -Red Nexus.

The campaign gained global attention in both music and gaming trade publications with over 27 minutes of average playtime from 189 countries. Throughout the campaign, Alan Walker gained over 1 million followers on Instagram and 7 million subscribers on YouTube, making him the 9th most popular music artist in the world on the platform. The campaign gained over half a billion views to the connected music videos and over 1 billion impressions overall. Engaging fans from every corner around the world.