TCL is the #2 TV brand globally, and a leading manufacturer of display, home and mobile devices, founded in 1981 and operating in 160+ countries.
The Challenge
TCL was already a global leader in display technology.
In 2018, they set their sights on smartphones - a saturated market dominated by incumbents with entrenched loyalty, all competing on specs, price, and marginal upgrades. The one thing TCL couldn't afford to do was to launch "another Android phone" and watch it sink into the swamp.
The Spark
This was a brand with real history - not in telecommunications, but in entertainment.
For 40 years, they'd made screens people lost themselves in. Meanwhile, our research found that, for a significant portion of TCL's target audience, their phone wasn't primarily used for calls and texts. It was for content - consuming it and creating it.
The Breakthrough
We positioned TCL Mobile not as a phone brand, but as the world's first mobile entertainment system, extending TCL's display leadership into a new form factor.
That shift moved TCL out of direct comparison and into a category it could credibly own. From this positioning came DISPLAY GREATNESS. More than a launch line, it became a belief - empowering young creators to express their potential.
The Impact
Impact: The most successful in TCL's history, DISPLAY GREATNESS generated $18.2m in ad-equivalent value at IFA 2019, followed by $33m at CES 2020, and helped drive over $65m in attributed revenue through rapid regional uptake.
The idea proved so effective that it didn't stay within mobile. TCL adopted DISPLAY GREATNESS as a masterbrand platform across products, partnerships, and global activity.
