The ask
Concept a campaign that showcases Apple's role in keeping creativity alive during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Creative insight
As the pandemic explodes outward, people are turning inward... and leaning on their devices to keep them connected to their world.


Campaign idea
Power on


Activating the idea
Show the resolve and commitment that powering on an Apple device symbolizes.


Manifesto
There were days when we struggled to get out of our beds, even lift up our heads. We felt cheated, beaten and broken. Didn’t know what was right: Should we run? Could we fight? So we stayed inside and kept going.

For us each, it was different. Some dug deep when we could. Others broke; understood. Feeling lost, labored on, still unknowing. Putting mind over matter, choosing not to be shattered. Just to do all we could to keep going.

Then something in us, it changed. As we found whole new ways to pass nights and the days as the world all around us was slowing. We explored a bit more, still not far from our doors, and with a new point of view, kept on going.

We took for granted so much. And keep wondering when we’ll be together again, now feeling different and knowing soon we'll start to feel hope, at the end of these ropes, if together can find ways to keep going.

Apple
Power on.


Creative approach
Track the journey of people's grief transforming into resolve with crowd-sourced, black-and-white photos, featuring our suite of products in a subtle, secondary light.


Anthem video
Script: “Carry On,” by Fun.

Visual story: Start out with single photojournalistic images of confusion, longing, shock, and grief happening around the world.

With a slight change in music, we’ll shift to somber shots in homes: people longingly looking out windows, “We’re in this together” signs and sidewalk chalk drawings, empty streets and “closed” signs.

As the music ramps up and slowly becomes more positive, we’ll show a mix of artful shots that juxtapose people both thriving and struggling at home: teachers teaching, students learning, parents working, families cooking, people exercising, small businesses delivering… all the while, subtly showing Apple’s devices mixed into people’s worlds in new ways.

As the music becomes more upbeat and hopeful, it eventually swells to reveal a changed world: One where families gather together alongside remote family members at the dinner table, where remote exercise classes thrive, where asynchronous collaboration allows people to work at all different hours, in all different time zones. Where stories are read in tents on iPads, Happy Birthdays are sung via FaceTime, home renovations are shared with friends... all deeply meaningful moments we once took for granted, that have been re-enabled by Apple.

Music comes back down, and we end with the reveal of a simple line on black: Power on.

Close on the Apple logo.


Art Direction
Black and white, croud-sourced photography. Some of the photography shown here is not original; it’s used as mood board imagery, only.