Cultural / Context information for the jury

To celebrate the launch of Ed Sheeran’s new album “=” in cities across in Asia, we launched ‘Visiting Butterflies’ — a series of multimedia activations that took off in Hong Kong and made its rounds around Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. In theme with how “=” captures the intimate and the everyday, ‘Visiting Butterflies’ immerses fans in an equally stunning interpretation of the album’s visuals, narrated by Ed’s voice at select locations. A rare out-of-home experience in a time when much of music marketing has moved online.

Please outline the innovative elements of the work

The activation was custom-fitted for a unique, landmark public space in each city: Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts in Hong Kong, Plaza Indonesia in Jakarta, the SM Mall of Asia Globe in Manila and on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. The campaign was designed to drive talkability and shareability across all social platforms and media, with fans and influencers alike posting about the activations. Via social and media coverage (including on Ed’s own socials), our activation reached audiences far beyond Asia, with an estimated total reach of 55.5M. ‘Visiting Butterflies’ was a cornerstone of our album campaign that resulted in 62.8M Spotify streams, 7.2M Spotify listeners and Top 10 positions on both Spotify and Apple Music charts, in just the participating markets alone.