The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2022
Back Market 'Hack Market': AirDropping 'go refurbished' inside Apple Stores
Back Market hides a bot outside Apple stores and AirDrops 'go refurbished' messages to every device inside — Apple's own tech sells the greener option.
Back Market
What it had to solve
Back Market, the French marketplace for refurbished electronics, wanted to overturn the idea that second-hand devices are second-rate. With agency Marcel it chose to make the case exactly where shoppers were about to buy new — inside Apple's own stores.
How it works
Back Market sells refurbished electronics in a market where 'used' has to be argued against 'new'. To change that, it did not launch another brand film; with agency Marcel it staged the argument where the opposite decision was being made — inside Apple Stores.
The delivery system was the joke and the proof at once. A phone running an AirDrop bot, hidden in a water bottle on a bicycle parked outside three European Apple Stores, pushed messages to every iPhone, iPad and MacBook within range: 'Quick! Security isn't looking', 'It's time to go refurbished. With a cheaper and greener model', each carrying a link to Back Market.
Apple's own mesh network became the competitor's loudspeaker. Shoppers standing in the temple of new hardware watched their devices flash a pitch for the second-hand alternative — and the stunt's documentation shows customers reacting with delight, one man saying outright that it changed his mind.
The judges of D&AD's 61st edition (2023) awarded the campaign a Pencil among its sustainability-recognized work, and the coverage in tech and marketing press carried the story far beyond the three storefronts — an ambush that needed no media budget, only a bike, a bottle and a bot.
Why it lands
- The medium was the argument: the pitch arrived through Apple's own technology inside its own stores, so it could not be dismissed as just another ad.
- The stunt was engineered to be retold: hidden phone, dodged security, hijacked screens — the documentation itself generated the earned media.
- It reached consumers at the exact moment of the new-phone purchase decision, not weeks earlier in an ad break.
- Cost stayed near zero: no media buy, no production budget to speak of — spectacle instead of spend.
What it did
The stunt put the pitch on the screens of people mid-purchase; reactions inside the stores were positive, with one shopper saying it changed his mind. It earned a D&AD 2023 Pencil as sustainability-promoting work and was covered from AppleInsider to Adweek.
What you can take
When you can't buy the competitor's airtime, borrow the competitor's channel: a message delivered inside the rival's store by the rival's own tech persuades harder than any placement you could afford.
Since then
The 2022 stunt was picked up by tech and marketing press from AppleInsider to Adweek, and a year later it took a D&AD Pencil in the 61st edition for promoting refurbished tech's sustainability benefits. For Back Market it became the reference case for its brand position — the company that sells the smarter, greener device — and for the industry it remains a textbook example of ambush marketing staged on a rival's retail floor.
Sources
- D&AD reveals all the winners of its 61st edition, including 2 recipients of the prized Black Pencil
- Refurb phone company 'hacks' Apple stores with airdrop stunt
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