Apple Japan has launched a series of TV and social media videos with famous local artists and animators taking the App Store logo on creative journeys.
There's got to be someone new in Apple's marketing team, because the company is suddenly playing around with its usually protected icons and images. It started with the cute Little Finder Guy on Instagram, it's continued with an original Mac birthday cake, and now it's the turn of the App Store.
As first spotted by advertising and marketing publication Creative Blog, Apple Japan has launched a new campaign to promote creative apps in the App Store. There are 16 pieces of artwork, made by 13 artists, and compiled into three videos.
Japanese creatives including Chika Umino,, Chalkboy, Hikaru Ichijo, POOL, and Haruko Hayakawa, produced the ads
The starts and ends of each video are the same, showing a user tapping on the App Store to enter a world of animation.
The three videos are also all set to the same soundtrack, a track called "Fashion" by K-Pop band IVE.
That track is a pre-release tease for IVE's forthcoming EP, due to be launched on Apple Music on May 27, 2026.
There's no official list of the apps being shown — or that were used to make the artworks — so as well as an energetic race through the App Store, there is the fun of trying to spot clues. Sharp-eyed gamers will see Battle Cats, and Pokemon Sleep characters, for instance.
If you live in Japan, you're not going to be able to escape the videos — although they're gorgeous, you shouldn't want to. As well as being on YouTube, and across all social media, and Japanese television, they are going to play on billboard screens in at least major cities.
It all makes the old "I'm a Mac" ads seem quaint. Given that those ads are still being ripped off — sorry, paid homage to — 20 years later, expect to Apple Japan being copied soon.
Although anyone trying to make the Microsoft Store seem fun is going to face an uphill battle. Maybe they could do a Lil'BSOD Guy.
