Apple Music’s brand mission is to champion artists' creative vision and share it with the world. And for the 2019 Grammy Awards, we wanted to give our artists a platform to express their own individual creativity with Memoji Music Videos.

Using Apple’s latest iPhone technology, we created Memoji Music Videos for some of the biggest artists in the world on music's biggest night: the 2019 Grammy Awards.

On Feb 6, Ariana Grande announced she was pulling out of the Grammy awards following a disagreement with the show producers who did not allow her to perform her new single, "7 Rings" As the champion of artist creativity, Apple wanted to give Ariana Grande a different kind of stage during the Grammy Awards, making her presence known from outside the Staple Center walls. Knowing her fans "Arianators" are very active on social media, Apple aimed to create a relatable film that could be shared socially that gave her fans access to Ariana while also inserting Apple's Memoji feature directly into a cultural moment. Just two days after her announcement to cancel the Grammy Awards performance, Apple dropped, "Ariana Grande + Memoji". A 60-second film that lived on YouTube, digitally and socially.

We created a trio of Memoji Music Videos – partnering with a diverse group of artists to both break new songs and entertain music fans across the country.

Every Memoji performance and "look" was captured exclusively using retail-available iPhone XR and iPhone XS models. Then exported to Adobe After Effects for the full music video treatment, including dynamic backgrounds and lighting effects.

The spots aired during the Grammys broadcast on February 10, 2019. Also launching on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and the Apple Music platform.

The New York Times stating, "all of the noise Grande generated was heard everywhere but the actual broadcast, making her one of several artists who made loud splashes without ever setting foot in the Staples Center." Coverage spanned a range of pop culture outlets including Vox, Us Weekly, Vulture, Hypebeast, Fast Company and more, each buzzing about the film and applauding Apple Music for standing by the artist. Total coverage garnered 385m+ earned impressions in the course of just 4 days. 75% of all social mentions of the ad during the Grammys were attributed to Apple Music, despite her cancelled performance. The timing of the film also sparked social conversation with more than 19K social mentions and 26K shares from YouTube in the first week.

Additionally, fans took to YouTube sharing their own Memoji, where we saw a 23% increase in average weekly posts to 240 videos per week.