The Campaign

For most Chinese people, Chinese New Year is the once-in-a-year time they get together with their family. These reunions however are sometimes taken for granted. We wanted to inspire people to cherish these precious moments by capturing their family reunions with their iPhone. The film itself, without a single iPhone X in it, shows the power of iPhone X. But for the audience, the touching true story shot by Hong Kong cinema icon Peter Chan, became content that was inspiring, relatable and meaningful.

Creative Execution

The film launched February 1st, the first day of China’s massive CNY reunion travel period, exclusively on apple.com and on Youku. A premiere was held in Beijing, attended by nearly 50 media representatives. The film also appeared on Tencent and iQiyi video sites over the campaign. “Three Minutes” was further amplified with push messages on WeChat, broadcast media, CNY films in Cinema, outdoor and from Tim Cook's Weibo account to promote the film.

The film and How To films had well over 100m views over the duration of the campaign. It became China’s most talked about campaign for CNY, creating greater cultural influence than the new Star Wars movie (released around the same time in China). The film was featured in various national and local news, and inspired several fan-made parody.

Inspired by true story, we crafted a moving stand-alone film worthy of cinemas. This was done without a single product featured. Released during Chinese New Year, it came out at the peak of communication-clutter in China. Every possible brand was promoting, selling something, showing only cheerful reunions at home. Yet, what makes reunions special are the connections between loved ones and the stories behind them. The story hit a deep cultural tension of societal pressure on kids to succeed and the struggle of working moms. It was embraced as meaningful and sharing-worthy, sparking endless conversations on family love and sacrifice.

Families go through great lengths for their once-in-a-year reunions at CNY. Instead of making a commercial with cliché celebrations and product placement, we took a different approach—deliver the brand’s human values through a film about the true and well observed story of a special reunion. The film should move our audience to capture their own reunion moments. Inspired by a true story about a train conductor who only had three minutes to spend with her son on CNY, the film was beautifully shot by Hong Kong cinema icon Peter Chan, entirely on iPhone X.