Situation

During the holidays consumers are overwhelmed with shouty sales messages and this leads to a lot of unnecessary stress and a negative shopping experience.

Brief

The brief was to build anticipation and remind people that no matter what they bought from Apple, it would be a wonderful gift.

Objective

Our objective was to create a global campaign that stood out and drove people to the Apple Store to buy their gifts for the holidays, without adding to the all clutter and exhaustion.

Media Insight

We wanted to create excitement through the iconic nature of the placements and the dimensions of the boards. This way we were able to reach consumers in shopping districts with our shopping bag in a way that didn’t look like a tradition billboard.

To avoid competing with other retailer’s holiday messaging, we decided to rely on the strength of the Apple brand and people’s imagination.

With just a handle and a bow logo we transformed the white canvas of iconic billboards into our shopping bag and reminded shoppers on the streets about the wonder that awaits in nearby Apple Stores.

There weren’t a lot of billboards globally that matched the dimensions of our bags so we had to find boards that would be high impact and drive impressions. We reviewed hundreds of placements in 25 different countries and less than 3% of those billboards matched our criteria.

We found that a few key boards in major cities could have an outsized impact on the campaign.

We targeted people in shopping districts during the holidays. We wanted to reach people when they were already in the shopping mindset and remind them to visit the Apple Store.

Additionally, we also focused our placements in key business markets. For example, Soho in New York, Michigan Avenue in Chicago, or the 4th arrondissement in Paris. As an added bonus, there was a Christmas tree farm under our holiday billboard in Munich.

We searched for boards that matched these specifications along with the right dimensions that would give the impression of an oversized shopping bag, using Apple’s three bag sizes as our guide.

The billboards were part of a larger holiday campaign that all utilized the Apple shopping bag and holiday bow logo. Throughout the creative touch points, the bag was brought to life.

The team worked with multiple photographers to shoot the bag with such attention to detail that it would give a 3D effect when implemented on a large scale.

The billboard campaign went live during the four key weeks of the holiday shopping season, from mid-November through mid-December to reach the most shoppers.

We focused on nine hardworking and iconic boards in key locations, across three countries.

Instead of quantity we opted for high quality, high visibility boards. We saw an immediate result. The billboards were picked up in the press and drove overwhelmingly positive social media mentions.

The billboards delivered 171 million media impressions.

The stores were filled with holiday shoppers. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t share any sales results.

The holiday bag itself, which was offered in the Apple Store during the campaign, became so desired it began showing up on eBay.

And thanks to these simple billboards, a bag was elevated into an icon.