Our brief was simple: grab peoples’ attention, brand the moment, and hype the Halftime Show performance in just eight seconds.

Apple Music used what is historically known as a forgettable branding moment to excite Usher’s biggest fans and light up the Internet. We inserted an 8 second easter egg at the beginning of the Apple Music Halftime Show broadcast with references to Usher (“Rated U”) and his long history of sexy performances—the kind of references designed to speak directly to music’s biggest fans on the world’s biggest stage.

For this eight-second placement affectionately called "the throw," our objective was to brand the moment and get credit for the halftime show sponsorship. Our audience was massive - the 100+ million viewers tuning in to the halftime show - and they were most likely using these last seconds before halftime to gather up their snacks and settle in to their seats. So rather than simply waving a traditional logo lockup in front of them for eight seconds, our strategy was to turn the moment into a tone-setting provocation for the performance that was about to unfold - because if you never know what’s next, it’s harder to look away.

During a typical branding moment 15 seconds before the start of the Apple Music Halftime Show telecast, a small glitch suddenly cut to a classification screen, warning fans that the performance they were about to see was Rated U (a nod to Usher’s nickname) and could cause dancing, sweating, gyrating and possible relationship issues. While only 8 seconds, the simple red screen was designed to be photographed and shared on social media by fans who were paying attention (and it turns out, there were a lot).

Overall, our show intro recieved 129 million views, part of the most watched broadcast in TV history, and contributed to our highest-ever levels of unaided brand awareness.