The Chain

By Essence, London, UK

For Google

Winner in category Media

WPPED Cream
Project Description
When Google’s Pixel smartphone launched in the UK in late 2016, nearly a decade after the iPhone first changed the game, the marketplace was dominated by two goliaths, Apple and Samsung. Consumers - exhausted by years of over-promised tech revolutions - needed to be presented with a new way to evaluate the category if we were to create desire. The Pixel 2 asks people to ask more of their phone. So, rather than simply promise more tech innovation, we embraced what Google is known and loved for: a promise to constantly challenge norms. And, to heighten the relevance of the campaign to our target audience, we turned to an industry best known for sharing the same norm-challenging values: fashion.
Agency Solution
With the idea of promoting towards a highly stylish crowd that is open to “creatures of change” - the designers, writers, critics, and conversationalists who question norms - we scoured the world of fashion to find 10 catalysts. One of these included model Adwoa Aboah who was merely a month away from gracing the cover of British Vogue. Each was briefed on all of the great features of the new Pixel 2 and sent on their way.
Over the course of 10 days they, one by one, gave us a behind the scenes look at their daily lives: their inspirations, the people they connect with, the trends they are spotting. They captured their content with our Pixel 2 device, uploaded daily into The Guardian, and curated into 50+ digital articles, 3 videos and a beautiful 32-page fashion magazine that was then distributed in fashion boutiques across London. For the forward-thinking crowd, the traditional media spaces wouldn’t suffice.
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