F5 Shanghai imagines the world’s longest queue for China Mobile’s World Cup campaign

China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, has launched a new World Cup campaign created by F5 Shanghai, turning the brand’s scale into a simple visual idea: what would happen if more than one billion China Mobile users had to queue offline to claim their World Cup viewing benefits?

The answer is an impossible line, which is long enough to circle the Earth 12.5 times.

The campaign promotes a simple product benefit: users can claim free World Cup viewing rights directly through the China Mobile app. Rather than explain the function in a conventional service message, F5 Shanghai transforms it into a surreal entertainment film built around the absurdity of offline queuing.

The AI-generated film opens with a familiar promotional scene: a giant banner offering free World Cup viewing rights and crowds gathering to claim the offer. The queue quickly expands beyond the city, stretching across China, through the Great Wall, and then around the world via landmarks including the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and Christ the Redeemer.

As the film builds, the “queue universe” becomes increasingly surreal. Animals, penguins, ants and even astronauts are pulled into the idea, turning a functional app message into a global visual spectacle.

The story eventually cuts back to a meeting room, revealing that the giant queue is an imagined scenario. A simpler solution is then suggested: claim the benefit with one tap in the China Mobile app. The film closes by showing users watching the World Cup across mobile and tablet screens, bringing the campaign back to the app and its core user benefit.

Adams Fan, Chief Creative Officer of F5 Shanghai, said: “In China, AI is already being widely used by brands, and the public is generally more open to AI-generated content than audiences in many Western markets. For us, AI is not just a production shortcut. It gives surreal storytelling a new kind of realism.”