LIFELINE

Grand Prix
TitleLIFELINE
BrandQUALCOMM
Product / ServiceQUALCOMM SNAPDRAGON
CategoryA03. Online: Fiction & Non-Fiction
EntrantOGILVY & MATHER New York, USA
Idea Creation OGILVY & MATHER New York, USA
Production OGILVY & MATHER New York, USA
Media NEO@OGILVY Beijing, CHINA
Media 2 NEO@OGILVY New York, USA
PR OGILVY & MATHER New York, USA
PR 2 DI GENNARO New York, USA
PR 3 BURSON MARSTELLER Beijing, CHINA
Production 2 ANONYMOUS CONTENT Culver City, USA
Production 3 APRIL HARVEST PRODUCTIONS Shanghai, CHINA
Production 4 ARCADE EDIT Santa Monica, USA
Production 5 TIMBER Santa Monica, USA
Production 6 PULSE MUSIC New York, USA
Production 7 H&O PRODUCTIONS NEW YORK, USA

Credits

Name Company Position
Teddy Lynn Ogilvy Chief Creative Officer
Aaron Mosher / David Yankelewitz Ogilvy Group Creative Director
Bastien Baumann / Chris Rowson / Zhang Bozhan Ogilvy Creative Director
Andrew Miller / Lauren Van Aswegen / Lin Yin Ogilvy Senior Art Director
Peter Nordstrom / Dan Winikur / Tim Stiefler / Sun Hua Ogilvy Copywriter
Matt Bonin / Karl Westman / Nicole Severi / Sebastian Aresco Ogilvy Production
Mark Himmelsbach Ogilvy President, Content & Social
Adam Puchalsky / Lee Sheng Ogilvy Executive Group Director
Brian Lee / Alexandra Andrial / Vanessa Luo / Zora Liao / Faith Stonner / Zoey Dong Ogilvy Account Management
Kim Kozma / Sarah Greenfield / Alice Wei / Michael Bruckstein / Mandana Mellano / Allison Karr / Wynn Kong / Weiwei Yu / Samantha Sutantio / Ryan Kelly / Amy Fraze / Melissa Gorris Ogilvy Media
Armando Bo / Lucas Bucci / Mariana Levy Screenwriter
Armando Bo Director
Steve Golin / Eric Stern Anonymous Content Executive Producer
Vincenzo Landay Anonymous Content Producer
Danny Bensi / Saunder Jurriaans Pulse Music Composer
Paul Martinez Arcade Edit Film Editor
Kristen Thon Webb Arcade Edit Executive Producer
Kevin Lao Timber Creative Director
Lauren Loftus Timber Senior Producer
Joshua Teicher / Nikki Draak / George Gross H&O Productions Post Production

The Campaign

We created “Lifeline”, 30-minute product demo disguised as a psychological thriller. Kai, a young Chinese man who is the heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, wakes up in Shanghai one morning to discover that his true love, an American woman named Emma, has vanished without a trace. Confused and distraught Kai fears she has left him until he receives a mysterious package containing Emma’s phone. Over the subsequent 30 minutes Kai must use Emma’s phone (and many of its differentiated features) to figure out what has happened to Emma, who she really is and get to the bottom of both their relationship and her disappearance. Along the way he will be forced to question his beliefs, his family and his love for Emma.

Creative Execution

Written by Academy Award winner Armando Bo (Birdman) and starring A – List talent from both the US (Olivia Munn) and China (Wang Leehom and Joan Chen), the film was shot on location in Shanghai and played out in both Mandarin and English. It was produced by the Academy Award winning producer of “Spotlight”, “The Revenant” and “True Detective”. The film was launched on iQiyi in China and on Hulu, YouTube and Facebook in the U.S. The film’s talent, and their massive social followings, were used to drive traffic to the film using a range of trailers, posts, and gifs in both languages.

To date, the full film of “Lifeline” has been viewed more than 18MM times despite the fact that it is a 30-minute product demo with subtitles. Including ancillary content such as the accompany documentary and trailers, total views have exceeded 99MM. Major news coverage of the film has included mentions in 29 outlets in The U.S. including The New York Times and Fast Company and in China it was covered more than 180 times across major media including Zol, Youku and Sohu.

Lifeline is a 30-minute Qualcomm branded psychological thriller made by A-List talent from both China and The U.S. that was watched by millions. As a product demo in disguise, it is a perfect example of unskippable content.

The insight was that people now live their entire lives with their phones as their most necessary and valuable possession, and used that insight to demonstrate the differentiating features of a Qualcomm powered device in a compelling way. Competitors all tout specs and, speeds and features, but we demonstrated them in a natural way. Then, upon finishing the film, people were invited to watch an accompanying documentary called “Inside Lifeline” featuring talent from the film and product experts, who explained the role technology played in driving the story forward. In China, more than 65% of the films viewers went on to watch “Inside Lifeline.”

Links

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