The last product we touch at night and first thing next morning is likely to be Corning Gorilla Glass on our smartphone – a product integral to more than six billion devices worldwide from over 45 brands. And yet Gorilla Glass is, literally, invisible. One of the world’s few ingredient brands. Promoting a brand so many people hold in their hands but don’t know it, is a significant challenge. Making it relevant and visible to a young, connected generation is even harder!

So, Gorilla Glass researched the content consumption habits of millennials across China, the largest smartphone market, and the fastest growing major market, India and the US. Music emerged as a universal content type consumed by 69% of the target audience. 61% use smartphones as their #1 device to listen to music. To reach millennials, the world’s largest group of smartphone owners, music was key.

With music the most influential form of marketing content for millennials, and the glass on their smartphones enabling their digital lives, Gorilla Glass combined with world leading rock band Imagine Dragons to deliver a campaign in China and India over several weeks. The campaign culminated in a unique fan experience concert in America, the home country of the brand and the home town of Imagine Dragons, in Las Vegas called The Origins Experience.

This fan experience was at the campaign core. The challenge was to make it relevant to consumers in the critical markets of India and China, where local music dominates the music scene. So, we re-created Imagine Dragons’ hit song ‘Believer’ through tribute tracks with local artists that resonated with local society.

For a glass manufacturing B2B company to create brand visibility through a rock music partnership was unique but compelling.

The core consumer/audience for both Corning Gorilla Glass and Imagine Dragons, is millennials. Studies show that most value experiences over products, so we made the campaign platform a one-its-kind concert in Las Vegas in collaboration with Corning Gorilla Glass, exclusively catering to their biggest fans from across the globe.

While the exclusive concert was the keystone of the campaign, the challenge was to make the collaboration between the brand and the band relevant to consumers in markets like India and China where local music (for instance Bollywood) is more popular than western rock. So, we recreated the Imagine Dragons’ song ‘Believer’ in a unique local style for China and India! The strategy was so successful that we saw nearly 30 million video views, almost half a million social engagements and even spawned entirely organic reaction videos as far afield as the Caribbean, Russia and Europe!

To engage and excite millennials across India and China, key tactics included local music video versions of Imagine Dragons track ‘Believer’ by key music influencers.

Indian Jam Project (IJP) using Indian instruments, shared across IJP’s 250K+ social media subscriber base. Amplification by influencers made it a viral sensation with nearly 8 million views - the highest engagement numbers that Corning has ever seen.

Chinese celebrity fan Tifa Chen created her rendition of ‘Believer’ featuring Mandarin rap and delivered millennial insights on the music-smartphone relationship, emphasizing the brand attributes of Gorilla Glass as a protective cover for smartphones.

We also:

• Created experiences – Live concert and viewing parties

• Co-promoted with OEMs – Xiaomi in India, Fitbit in the US, and OPPO in China

• Leveraged KOLs – High-profile media partners and KOLs, across regions

• Drove hyper-local on-the-ground connections – Activations at popular college festivals

Campaign results:

- Total reach: 1.7 billion across multiple markets

- Engagements: 15.4 million

- Video views: 29.8 million

- Social mentions: 448,000

- Visibility across key media: Rolling Stone, NDTV, The Times of India, HIT FM, QQ Music

- Growth in YouTube subscribers: Up by 82% from 11K to 20K in 3 months

The campaign helped establish Corning Gorilla Glass as a pro-music, pro-art, innovation brand, positioning it as an attractive ‘ingredient’ brand for millennials who dominate smartphone consumption. Many online visitors came for the music that Gorilla Glass created, but more consumers than ever ended up staying and subscribing to Corning Gorilla Glass channels – subscription to Corning’s channels jumped by 80%+.

The campaign, across India, China and the US delivered on establishing strong brand recall for Corning Gorilla Glass among millennials through media outreach, influencer and social media reach and content amplification.