iPager changed the texting industry in the United States, causing its main competitor - and one of the biggest brands in the world - to change its system after years of refusing to do so.

The campaign addressed a real issue faced by many users, sparking a cultural conversation about outdated messaging technology and the need for improvement. It shifted public perception about the limitations of Apple's messaging system and ultimately contributed to Apple's decision to adopt RCS when texting with Android - instead of the outdated SMS.

It’s an iPhone vs. Android world. And while Android is a bigger brand globally and used in the majority of phones worldwide, in the U.S. Apple is the clear leader, and considered a status brand.

And because most people in the U.S. use phone-native texting apps instead of messengers like WhatsApp, there’s a big issue for Android users here: “green bubbles”.

Apple runs two messaging systems. One is iMessage, which only works in messaging between iPhones and it's a great experience. The other is SMS- exclusively used to talk to Android phones and is tech that hasn’t really been upgraded since the 90’s. This is obviously littered with issues and lacks lots of modern texting comforts, and Android is blamed.

As a result, Android users face a lot of stigma and it often feels like Apple is the only game in town if you don’t want to be socially ostracized. The stats are crazy, and paint a sad picture:

70% of U.S. singles would rather date an iPhone user than an Android user

70% of U.S. Gen-zers say they would never own an Android. “A green message — anyone with an Android — throws off the entire chat, because now the whole thing has to be SMS,”

It might seem small, but especially for younger generations who do a majority of the communication over text, “green bubble” issues are a big deal. This could all be avoided if only Apple upgraded to industry-standard RCS.

In the U.S., iPhone holds a dominant 57.93% market share, with Gen Z and Millennials already heavily skewed towards iPhones, according to Statista. While native messaging like iMessage or Google Messages is the norm, communication between Apple (blue bubbles) and Android (green bubbles) is notoriously problematic. Apple intentionally downgrades messages from Android (originally RCS) to outdated SMS, causing pixelated media, different bubble colors, lack of encryption, and other issues. This leads most Americans to believe it's an Android problem, creating a negative perception of Android and its green bubble users. For years, Apple has resisted upgrading their outdated tech, perpetuating this cultural stigma. To educate users and pressure Apple, the iPager was created: a device exposing the outdated messaging tech Apple still employs.

In September 2023, with all eyes on Apple's latest innovation, we capitalized on the hype with a powerful stunt: the iPager. This mock Apple product highlighted the irony of Apple clinging to 30-year-old pager technology in their modern iPhones. The iPager effectively exposed Apple's outdated SMS use, shifting public perception of both companies. This campaign rallied consumers behind our cause, ultimately pressuring Apple to finally adopt the industry-standard RCS.

Apple has staked its reputation on innovation/tech, unveiling their creations every year. But lately their latest advancements have been met with an increasing amount of underwhelming ‘are they serious?’ memes and reactions. There was an opportunity for us to leverage that vulnerability. Apple is hostage to their own innovation reputation. If they’d done everything to create that image, perhaps they’d do anything to protect it if exposed— even upgrading to RCS. But one's greatest strength can be one's greatest weakness. So we used Apple’s reputation against them. So we launched Apple’s least innovative product, the iPager, and dressed it up with the same hype and fanfare they use to make their less-than-new launches seem exciting. Our goal was to correct the cultural narrative to show how Apple is actually causing these issues, making Apple stop downgrading their own users’ experience to make Android look bad and upgrade to RCS.

Inspired by the pagers of the 90s, we created the iPager, a device designed to highlight Apple's continued use of outdated SMS technology in its devices. We used the launch week of the new iPhone 15 to introduce iPager. Several units were created, which we sent to influencers, who were able to explain to everyone who was to blame for the poor messaging experience - changing the perception of Android. Besides targeting iPhone users, our secondary approach involved collaborating with three types of creators to expand our reach to a broader audience. These categories included Technology, Lifestyle, and Comedy. Our approach focused on educating the audience about the differences between RCS and SMS, emphasizing that the issue is not Android’s fault, maintaining our comedic tone of voice to contribute to the campaign’s lightheartedness. No one could resist sharing what became an instant clap back to Apple’s newest iPhone

The campaign delivered undeniable success. Public awareness of the SMS issue surged, leading to a 17.6% increase in positive sentiment towards Android and a 9.6% rise in negative sentiment towards Apple. The launch video became the most viewed in Android's history, the campaign garnered a staggering 1.2 billion impressions, and engagement on the Android channel skyrocketed by over 1000%. Just two months after the iPager launch, Apple finally bowed to pressure and publicly announced their adoption of RCS in 2024. Articles in major publications like the New York Times even credited the campaign as a major factor in this decision. The iPager effectively exposed Apple's outdated technology, shifted public perception, rallied consumers, and ultimately forced Apple to embrace the industry standard: RCS.