In recent years the narrative around foreign tech in France has turned sour. Our competitors sought to buy their way to popularity through endorsements - Huawei using Antoine Griezmann - or by resorting to trite symbolism - Samsung flashing the Eiffel Tower in ads. We wanted to build a deeper connection and reassert our difference with something more meaningful than a contract with a footballer. Knowing how strong the French rap scene is, we knew we could find opportunities to partner and support emerging talent and help take their career to the next level, while strengthening the connection between Apple and France and let us prove iPhone’s creative capabilities to a skeptical audience. Our brief to the musicians was simple. Express what your city means to you, and record it on iPhone.

The idea was to create a fresh and bold portrait of Paris, Marseille and Lyon. Led by the authentic vision of three emerging rappers, capturing the spirit and atmosphere of their home city, director Axel Morin created three films. With a strong B&W art direction, making best use of iPhone camera features like time-lapse and low light the films showed unexpected perspectives of familiar locations and helped the audience get an insider view of the places that had influenced the music and formed the backdrop of our artist’s lives.

Our strategic approach was to act as patrons of a new generation of French creative talent. Shot on iPhone has always been about Apple turning over its advertising space to let others share their view of the world, and in this case we wanted to focus on the insider’s view of French cities that emerging musicians and directors could provide us with. We knew the importance of French rap to the cities that have strong local scenes, but also the powerful impact it has nationally and amongst audiences with passion. Putting such talent at the heart of our approach also allowed us to activate the campaign across other Apple channels where people seek entertainment, in particular Apple Music, and let us support the artists we worked with to make the next step in their career.

We kicked the campaign off with a Europa League Final double spot - a match which featured Marseille and was hosted in Lyon, giving us the perfect launchpad to an audience of 6.4m people for the campaign. We continued with Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and pre-roll placements on major VoD platforms to reinforce its impact. To keep the campaign feeling fresh, midway though our 16th May until 21st June 2018 run we rotated in new How-To assets to reveal some of the techniques used in the film. Partnerships with Konbini, a culture and film publisher, and Booska-P, a music focused publisher, helped extend the campaign and deliver editorial integrations that boosted our reach and let us add depth to the artist’s stories. Shazam gave further support, and let us see that the tracks behind each film were proving massively popular.

“Hey @Apple, what’s the name of the song in the Lyon ad?” Twitter User. Positive impression for iPhone grew 19% amongst 18-24 year olds in France, and stayed elevated even 5 weeks post campaign launch. Alongside this, headlines asking “Who is Axel Morin?” and celebrating the collaboration between artists instantly validated our patronage approach. Media partner Booska-P turned the focus on other emerging French rappers, while Konbini, a publication known support of emerging film talent, took a deeper look at Axel’s unique visual style. Over 144k engagements with their content showed we were creating authentic connections. Axel also received a nomination for the Young Director Award, and Lomepal won the Prix de la Création Musicale hitting our goal of elevating new talent. ‘Photo Walks’ held at Apple Stores in France also saw an uptick in attendance, a score against our goal of inspiring people to create with iPhone.