The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024–2025
vivo's 'Call Me When You Need Me' phone-shot film tops 400M views
Director Xin Shuang shot an 11-minute three-generation drama entirely on one vivo X100 Ultra; 400M+ views made it vivo's most-watched brand film.
vivo
What it had to solve
Every flagship phone maker was advertising megapixels and lenses, which made vivo's imaging claims hard to feel and easy to tune out. The brief for vivo's annual brand film asked for a story told from the heart that would make audiences understand the X100 Ultra's power without listing a single feature.
How it works
Chinese smartphone marketing had collapsed into spec wars: each launch was another set of lens counts and sensor sizes, and claims of camera greatness sounded identical across brands. vivo's X100 Ultra needed to be felt as an imaging tool, not argued about, which is why its annual brand film brief was a story 'from the heart' with the product absent from the message.
Havas Group China handed the film to director Xin Shuang and made a disciplined choice: an 11-minute drama about three generations of men in one family, with the camera never mentioned and never shown. It was shot entirely on one X100 Ultra, and the making-of feature 'Get Started' documented how ordinary phone filmmaking can still be serious cinema, turning the production itself into evidence of the product's capability.
The bet was that hiding the phone would prove it better than featuring it. The film passed 400 million views in its first week — the highest of any film in vivo's annual imaging series — its Weibo hashtags drew over 120 million reads, and it was selected for official screening at the FIRST International Film Festival.
Awards followed from the Roi Festival (2025 Silver) and the Digitaling Awards (two silvers), and the case became a reference point in the Chinese industry for using a brand film as a live product demonstration: the ad was the demo, and every view was proof.
Why it lands
- A film shot entirely on the phone answers 'what can this camera do' more convincingly than any spec list.
- Keeping the product out of the frame makes viewers experience the imaging instead of being told about it.
- Three generations of understated father-son emotion gave the film cultural resonance Chinese audiences recognized and shared.
- Because every view is itself evidence of the camera's quality, the demonstration and the campaign are the same asset.
What it did
Within a week the film passed 400 million views, making it the most-watched film in vivo's annual imaging series, and its Weibo topics logged more than 120 million reads. It screened at the FIRST International Film Festival and collected a 2025 Roi Festival Silver plus two silvers at the 2024 Digitaling Awards, in short-film and video-production categories.
What you can take
Proof beats claims: when the product is a camera, make the advertisement itself the demonstration — and make that demonstration a story people want to watch.
Since then
The film became the benchmark for vivo's annual imaging-film series and pushed the industry to reassess what a phone can produce: the case triggered wide Chinese discussion of mobile filmmaking as a serious craft rather than a marketing gimmick. Its making-of feature reframed the X100 Ultra as a creative tool any owner could pick up. The work won a 2025 Roi Festival Silver and two silvers at the 2024 Digitaling Awards, and vivo returned to the same director for later imaging films, treating the format as an ongoing brand franchise.
Sources
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