APPLE | RELAX, IT'S IPHONE: R.I.P. LEON | 2023
You Thought It Was Dead, But It's Alive / Apple "R.I.P. LEON"
The lizard you're watching isn't moving. Worst case scenario, it's dead... wait, it's alive! That thirty-second swing from despair to joy lines up perfectly with iOS 16's "undo send" message feature.
The problem
Everyone's had that moment of dread when watching someone else's pet or plant, worried something might go wrong on your watch. Apple has always been a brand that shows rather than explains its new features, and here it borrows this universal anxiety to demonstrate the Undo Send feature.
The insight
The relief you feel the instant you manage to unsend a message you sent by mistake is a small feeling, but a surprisingly powerful one. By translating that into the extreme scenario of "is the lizard I'm watching dead or alive," the value of the feature comes through instantly.
The idea
A lizard named Leon plays dead, and the person watching him panics and sends the worst possible news to his owner. As Hanni El Khatib's "Alive" plays uneasily in the background, Leon flips over and comes back to life just as the chorus hits "I'm alive." The message gets hastily unsent, and everything's fine again.
What happened
The ad won the Grand Prix in Film at the 2023 Cannes Lions, and also picked up a Clio Gold in 2024.
Afterthought
The line "Relax, it's iPhone" really lands. Pulling off that sense of reassurance—that everything's fine as long as you've got an iPhone—using nothing but one lizard's acting is honestly pretty talented. Makes me want to lizard-sit too (not that I will).
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2023
