Mobvoi · 2017-2019

TicWatch Series

Creating a scalable brand and campaign system for Mobvoi’s smartwatch portfolio — from product strategy to global launch.

Mobvoi Smartwatch Portfolio

Building a scalable creative system for Mobvoi’s global smartwatch portfolio — aligning product positioning, campaign storytelling, and brand experience across three distinct launches.

Creative Direction Art Direction Campaign Photography Product Launches Social Content

ClientMobvoi

RoleCreative Director · Art Director

ScopePhotography, Video, Web, Amazon, Social, PR Events

ProductsTicWatch C2 · S2 · Pro

PhotographersSarah Lee · Sarah Holt

Video ProductionRan Films

Years2017 — 2019

After TicPods launched, the challenge wasn't simply whether Mobvoi could ship another hardware hit. It was whether the brand could support a full portfolio — three smartwatches, three user mindsets, one coherent creative point of view.

The Brief

Build a portfolio that feels deliberate — in a category dominated by Apple, Samsung, and Google.

By 2018, Mobvoi was ready to expand from a single hero device into a smartwatch portfolio. Three products, each positioned for a distinct lifestyle and user mindset: TicWatch C2 for the design-conscious wearer, TicWatch S2 for the outdoor athlete, TicWatch Pro for the smartwatch enthusiast who wanted long battery life and premium materials.

I led the creative direction across all three launches — defining the campaign approach, visual language, content ecosystem, and channel strategy across photography, video, web, Amazon, social, and in-person PR events. The goal was to make Mobvoi's portfolio feel like a family without flattening what made each product distinct.

The Approach

Start with the user. Build the system. Scale to market.

Each launch began with a close partnership with the product team to identify the device's true differentiators, followed by focus groups and surveys with Mobvoi's existing product ambassadors and users. The insights shaped the creative strategy — from photography direction and video narrative to page structure, messaging hierarchy, and channel-specific storytelling.

From insight to launch, I established the creative framework that connected research, production, and go-to-market execution across every touchpoint. I assembled external creative teams, sourced photographers, led shoot production, and selected video partners whose visual language aligned with the brand direction. The work launched first on the U.S. site, then scaled into Amazon storefront modules, where imagery and copy had to perform under a different page structure and a different buyer mindset.

Three Products, Three Stories

One family. Three audiences. Three distinct creative platforms.

TicWatch C2

Where form meets function

For the design-conscious wearer. Stainless steel case, genuine leather straps, a perfectly round display. The campaign leaned editorial — photographed close to the body and the materials it lived against, and anchored by a London press event with singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin.

TicWatch Pro

Simply boosted

The flagship. A knurled stainless-steel bezel, MIL-STD-810G durability, and Mobvoi's proprietary layered display technology delivering up to 30 days of battery in Essential Mode. The campaign positioned it as a premium performance object — engineered for serious use and photographed through material detail and urban pace.

TicWatch S2

Go out. Explore. Stay connected.

For the outdoor athlete. U.S. military-grade durability, 5 ATM waterproofing, GPS in remote terrain. The campaign was produced on location in Hawaii to show the product within the environments it was designed for — active, elemental, and built for movement.

TicWatch C2 · Launch Film

Where form meets function.

C2 was positioned as Mobvoi's design-led smartwatch — a product that needed to feel closer to fashion and industrial design than consumer tech. The visual direction used editorial neutrals, leather and steel surfaces, soft natural light, and considered framing close to the skin. After earning the iF Design Award 2019 and the Red Dot Design Award 2019, the campaign treated the product accordingly: as a design object, not just a gadget.

A London launch with Gabrielle Aplin.

The C2 launch was anchored by a press event in London with British singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin — an artist whose work carried craft, restraint, and intentional pace. The partnership wasn't driven by celebrity visibility alone; it was a strategic alignment of tone, audience, and creative sensibility.

TicWatch S2 · Hero Campaign

A smartwatch built for the outdoors, photographed where the outdoors actually live.

The S2 was Mobvoi's most environmentally specific product — built to survive temperature swings, water, dust, and altitude. The campaign needed to feel earned, not staged. I led the on-location creative direction in Hawaii, shaping the visual narrative around real movement, local surf culture, and elemental landscapes. The result was a campaign where the product felt integrated into the environment rather than placed on top of it: salt-air light, deep ocean color, and the watch as an extension of the person wearing it.

TicWatch S2 — Hawaii surfing campaign hero

TicWatch Pro · The Flagship

Simply boosted.

The Pro was Mobvoi's flagship — a knurled stainless-steel bezel, MIL-STD-810G durability, and Mobvoi's proprietary layered display technology delivering up to 30 days of battery in Essential Mode. The campaign established the product as a premium performance object: engineered for power users, expressed through material studies, urban detail, and lifestyle imagery that matched the pace it was built for.

The Visual System

One brand voice. Three distinct registers.

The portfolio needed a visual system flexible enough to support three different buyers without losing the family feeling. The strategy was to keep the brand system consistent while allowing each product's world to shift through audience, environment, and use case: C2 against editorial neutrals and minimal interiors, S2 in open Hawaiian landscape, Pro against considered urban detail and premium materials.

Typography, color treatment, product angles, and page conventions stayed consistent across all three. The differentiation lived in the casting, locations, pacing, and moments captured — creating distinction without fragmenting the brand.

"Three audiences. One brand. The job was differentiation through audience, environment, and use case — not through inconsistency."

That discipline made the work scale. Once the system was set, each new product launch, Amazon page adaptation, and social asset could move quickly while still feeling unmistakably Mobvoi.

Sustained Brand Voice

A brand isn't built on launches. It's built on every day in between.

Alongside the product launches, I led Mobvoi's Instagram content — translating the campaign system into a sustained editorial voice between hero moments. The feed gave each product room to breathe across seasons, made the broader Mobvoi worldview legible, and grew the brand's social audience from 35K to 114K followers in a single year.

Daily content discipline — color, composition, copy register, and product cadence — was where the visual system proved itself. If the campaign photography established the brand's posture, the social feed became the brand's ongoing voice.

In Closing

Three products, two years, one creative practice.

3 products
1 portfolio

Built end to end — research, creative strategy, production, photography, video, web, Amazon, social, PR.

The Mobvoi smartwatch portfolio was where I operated a hardware brand at full scope — connecting product strategy, audience insight, creative direction, production, and channel execution without an agency intermediary. Every part of the system had to hold together: the photography, the launch film, the product page, the PR event, the Amazon module, the social feed, and the messaging across markets.

The work established a foundation for how I approach brand systems today: creating scalable creative ecosystems where product positioning, storytelling, experience design, and content all reinforce a unified point of view — without losing the nuance that makes each product distinct.

← nissan aryia

ALL PROJECTS

Moët Hennessy Virtual Concierge →