Built for the ultimate community

A gamification strategy that activates and connects fans 

In the run up to the release of Ed Sheeran's new album Equals, Warner Music and livewall co-developed The Equals Game. A mobile browser game designed especially for the singer's most loyal fans.

With 77.5 million monthly listeners, boosting stream numbers for an artist of this caliber isn’t the primary challenge. For the release of Equals, the focus was therefore entirely shifted toward talkability and community building.

How do you activate and unite a massive, global online community in a way that goes beyond passive listening?

Warner Music's objective was to create an interactive cross media campaign to promote the new album, encouraging Ed Sheeran's online fanbase to actively participate and collaborate collectively to unlock exclusive content.

We developed a concept based on the personal message behind Ed Sheeran's album. As the artist himself explained: “My life changed greatly over the past few years, I got married, became a father, experienced loss, and I reflect on these topics over the course of the album. I see it as my coming-of-age record, and I can't wait to share this next chapter with you… with butterflies that simulate new life.”

To maximize talkability and align with this narrative of new life and personal growth, a cross media ecosystem was established across various digital and social platforms through The Equals Game.

Via a mobile browser game, fans could breed unique virtual butterflies by collecting specific color codes and sharing them within online communities like Reddit. The game was fully optimized for mobile devices. At the start, players received one flower color and one blank butterfly. A new color code was introduced every 8 hours. By strategically combining these color codes with the butterfly, a brand-new species was spawned.

This breeding mechanism finds its roots in games like Final Fantasy, one of the most successful MMOs on the market, where players progress by exchanging materials. This exact dynamic was applied to The Equals Game. In total, there were 14 unique butterflies to breed, with each butterfly successfully unlocking a new track from the upcoming album.

During an exclusive media day in Amsterdam, we recorded a series of videos with Ed Sheeran himself. This in game video content personally encouraged users to experiment with new butterfly combinations and actively share their color codes with the community. To drive maximum engagement, completing the game gave players a chance to win a unique meet and greet with Ed Sheeran.

To secure commercial impact, the campaign integrated a direct API link with Spotify. Every participant could easily log in using their Spotify account within the game. Once connected, a pre-save was automatically applied to the album. As a result, Equals automatically appeared in the fan's personal Spotify library the exact moment it dropped.

The campaign successfully transformed a traditional album release into a massive, collaborative community experience. Digital forums were flooded with threads dedicated to swapping color codes, generating unprecedented organic talkability around the album.

At the same time, the seamless Spotify integration converted high in-game engagement directly into guaranteed listeners and streaming spikes from the very first minute of the launch.