The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024
Apple's CNY film 'Little Garlic': Gen Z insecurity shot entirely on iPhone 15 Pro Max
For the Year of the Dragon, Apple's 15-minute fantasy about a girl who can become anyone doubles as an invisible demo of iPhone filmmaking.
Apple
What it had to solve
Every Chinese New Year since 2018, Apple has released a short film shot on iPhone, and the 2024 edition was its seventh. The brand had to stay relevant in China's largest, most contested smartphone market at a moment when the Cannes case cited 70 per cent of Chinese teens feeling anxious about study, work, looks or health — the film had to mean something before it could sell anything.
How it works
Each Chinese New Year since 2018, Apple has released a short film shot entirely on iPhone as its seasonal statement in China. The 2024 instalment, 'Little Garlic', faced a younger audience the Cannes case described as 70 per cent anxious over study, work, looks or health — a market where a spec-sheet commercial would land as noise, not culture.
Director Marc Webb turned that pressure into fantasy: Xiaowei can become anyone she wants, and keeps shape-shifting to earn approval until her grandfather, played by Fan Wei, reminds her who she started as. The superpower is also the demonstration — her transformations show off iPhone 15 Pro Max's five-times zoom, Action mode and Cinematic mode inside a plot, not a pitch, and the crew strapped the phone to a basketball for the film's spinning shots.
Released on 28 January 2024 across broadcast, digital and social channels, the film drew more than 19.36 million views on its Weibo topic, was shared by Tim Cook, and won a Silver Lion in Entertainment at Cannes Lions 2024. Its achievement was making the most important hardware feature of the year feel like a story about identity rather than an advertisement about a phone.
Why it lands
- Shooting an emotional fantasy made camera power the invisible medium, not the message.
- Making shape-shifting the girl's power turned feature-demoing into character development.
- Marc Webb and Fan Wei gave the film mainstream cultural weight beyond tech marketing.
- The behind-the-scenes film let filmmakers become the product's most credible reviewers.
What it did
The Weibo topic #Apple Spring Festival Short Film Xiao Suantou# (#苹果春节短片小蒜头#) passed 19.36 million views, Tim Cook shared the film, and discussion centred on the story rather than the specs. In June 2024 the work won a Silver Lion in Entertainment at Cannes Lions for TBWA Media Arts Lab, keeping Apple's phone-shot CNY film the anchor of its China marketing for a seventh consecutive year.
What you can take
Sell the tool by making it disappear: wrap the camera's capabilities in a story people retell, and the technology becomes something audiences feel rather than specs they compare.
Since then
At Cannes Lions in June 2024, TBWA Media Arts Lab's 'Little Garlic' took a Silver Lion in Entertainment, with the jury case framing it inside the platform Apple mounts every Spring Festival. Commentators read the series' drift towards universal identity themes as deliberate — stories about family, growth and self-acceptance travel across China's many local customs better than literal festival imagery, which let a phone-shot film carry the country's most personal conversations.
Sources
- Apple unveils new Spring Festival short film
- Empowering China's Gen Z: Apple's new CNY film takes on the touchy topic of insecurities
- Hotly anticipated Apple CNY ad finally out, and it's a tearjerker
- 戛纳第二日大中华区战报：两银一铜
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