This year, we were given the unique challenge of launching Apple Music’s first-ever Super Bowl Halftime Show partnership.

Beyond the brand partnership, this year marked the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate one of the most anticipated moments in recent musical memory: the return of Rihanna after more than 7 years away.

The task was to create a trailer that would build anticipation for the first ever Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show and reintroduce Rihanna to the stage after a 7 years hiatus.

In making Apple Music an undeniable part of this moment, our objective was to generate maximum brand awareness and organic reach in the weeks leading up to Rihanna’s performance at the Super Bowl.

During our research phase, we looked through years of interviews and articles about Rihanna to find the most impactful comments about her absence. We also combed through thousands of comments from fans.

Even after years of absence, the noise around Rihanna’s return was still not slowing down. Desperate fans were constantly speculating on social media. But with no sign of a comeback in sight, skeptic media commentators were starting to report that Rihanna may never return to music. The doubters and haters were getting louder and louder.

Gathering this data gave us a clear understanding of the overall sentiment: Even if discouraged by skeptics, the world was still waiting. So when we were tasked with revealing that Rihanna would take on the stage again, we knew doubters were about to be proven wrong. It was finally time to silence the critics.

For the Trailer, we needed to create as much hype and conversation as possible. We wanted to get the word out about Rihanna’s Return to as many her biggest fans and let them spread the word. This was the first moment that people would be seeing Rihanna in over seven years and it was important for us to make this trailer feel as big as the moment while maintaining some mystery.

The execution cleverly took advantage of the news cycle around Rihanna’s return and owned the entire conversation around her comeback to the world’s biggest stage. By directly referencing real press clips and voices as part of our creative, we knew this would likely cause these same outlets and more to react, comment, and even respond – ultimately helping us spread the news of Rihanna’s return. This happened on a much larger scale than we could have predicted as the trailer was reported not only by outlets and organically shared by influencers in the US, but in 97 countries.

* 9% bump in brand awareness for Apple Music across full US population

* 78M+ organic views

* 4.2M+ social mentions

* 1423 articles written about the trailer and Apple Music first ever Halftime Show in 97 countries

* Promotion culminated in the 2nd most-watched TV moment ever measured

* Rihanna streams on Apple Music up 400% in the the weeks leading up to the Halftime Show.