Awareness of Google’s Pixel smartphone and its features have grown steadily since Google released the first Pixel. But with the launch of the third iteration of the Pixel on the horizon, the phone remained a challenger brand in a hardware landscape largely dominated by Apple and Samsung. In today’s smartphone wars, you’re only as good as your camera quality. And with Apple dominating the camera message every year, we needed to break through in dramatic fashion.

With the Pixel 2’s camera receiving universal accolades for its camera performance, we knew the Pixel 3 would continue to shine. The Pixel’s camera is state of the art, enhanced with Google’s AI capabilities to contain a variety of best-in-class features. We believed the Pixel 3’s quality would speak for itself, if given the chance. The challenge was finding a stage big enough - and credible enough - that everyone would see the proof.

Magazine covers are widely viewed as the pinnacle of photography, yet the format has not evolved for the digital-first way in which content is consumed today. We believed we could use the Pixel 3 to disrupt the traditional magazine cover, pushing the boundaries of how creative teams produce editorial content and ensuring mass reach through digital media. So we convinced Annie Leibovitz to switch from iPhone to Pixel, and worked with 9 more of the world's top photographers to shoot covers across the Conde Nast universe -- captured entirely on the Pixel 3. And to combat the decline in print circulation and the flood of daily content, we released Condé Nast's first-ever digital covers, starring Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas in romantic bliss, released on the day of their wedding.

Our target audience consisted of what we called “Bosses in the Making.” These are the change-makers shaping culture and industries, leading movements, breaking down barriers, and humbly pushing society forward. Heavy social media users, and influenced by their peers, they seek inspiration from everything around them and see opportunity everywhere.

To reach them, we partnered with Condé Nast for its biggest simultaneous cover campaign. In the US, we shot the covers of Allure, Architectural Digest, Bon Appetit, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, and W with the Pixel 3. We also captured the first ever digital covers for GQ and Vogue, as well as additional behind-the-scenes content, all recorded with the Pixel 3. In Japan, an entire issue of Teen Vogue was captured with Pixel 3. And in EMEA, we captured print covers for GQ and Wired, accompanied by behind-the-scenes videos and imagery shared through Condé’s social channels.

The October launch coincided with the Pixel hardware announcement and on-sale date. We had magazines hold off on newsstand distribution, keeping the covers under embargo until Google revealed them on stage. #CondeCovers quickly became a top trending topic on Twitter as the announcement streamed live online. Our YouTube trueview campaign kicked in immediately after the reveal, with bumpers showcasing the covers and action from behind-the-scenes.

Our digital covers were timed to coincide with high visibility cultural moments to enhance their PR value. NBA star Joel Embiid’s GQ cover launched during his first game. Celebrity couple Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra’s Vogue cover launched on their wedding day; our exclusive access to the couple led to our content trending on YouTube.

Vogue’s first digital cover went viral overnight: trending among the top three on YouTube with more than 2 million views in 24 hours and eventually garnering 65x more engagement than the average Vogue digital article. It earned media coverage from every major entertainment outlet and gained more social and PR impressions than the initial print cover reveal at the Pixel announcement.

The reveal of the cover shoots reached 31% of millennials in the US and trended on Twitter.

- 220MM social impressions - a first for any Condé partnership.