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How Crosscall NATURE'S EYES Reframes the Rugged Smartphone
NATURE'S EYES is a 2017 film campaign created by Leo Burnett France for Crosscall, positioning the TREKKER-X3 ultra resistant smartphone through the perspectives of two real-world outdoor protagonists whose lives depend on the environments the device is built to survive.
Published in France in March 2017, the campaign introduces Botei, a Mongolian eagle hunter, and Kuja, a member of the Achuar community in the Amazon, as its central subjects. Rather than simulating adventure in a controlled setting, the creative decision places the TREKKER-X3 inside genuinely extreme conditions, anchoring the product's durability credentials to lived human experience. The campaign contains one primary film asset and extends its reach through a social dimension, inviting audiences to follow both protagonists on Instagram and encouraging support for an Achuar-community project.
In France, the rugged and ultra resistant smartphone category occupied a distinct niche within a broader electronics market that was contending with near-flat global smartphone volume. According to IDC figures reported by Gadgets360, global smartphone sales totalled approximately 1.47 billion units in 2017, essentially unchanged year-over-year. Against that saturated backdrop, Crosscall's strategy in France was not to compete on volume but to own a values-defined segment — outdoor professionals, adventure sports participants, and nature-connected consumers — for whom conventional consumer smartphones represent an inadequate tool. The TREKKER-X3 is presented not as a lifestyle accessory but as field equipment, and NATURE'S EYES exists to make that distinction visceral rather than technical. Clapboard scores the campaign 71 out of 100.
Crosscall built its commercial identity in France around a specific consumer truth: outdoor professionals and serious adventure participants do not recognise themselves in mainstream smartphone advertising. The brand identified 2014 as a major expansion year driven by the success of its first-generation outdoor smartphones, according to crosscall.com, establishing a trajectory of category specialisation that NATURE'S EYES accelerates by 2017.
The strategic insight underpinning the campaign is that durability claims are inert when delivered through product demonstration alone. Competing rugged device manufacturers — including CAT Phones, whose ruggedised handsets target a similar professional outdoor audience, and Samsung with its Galaxy Active line — have historically anchored credibility to certification standards and stress-test footage. Crosscall and Leo Burnett France chose a different axis: human testimony from communities whose daily existence constitutes an ongoing durability test. Botei's work as a Mongolian eagle hunter and Kuja's life within the Achuar community in the Amazon are not metaphors for toughness — they are the thing itself.
This approach also responds to a cultural moment in France in which consumers were increasingly scrutinising the authenticity of brand purpose. By connecting the TREKKER-X3 to cultural identity and environmental stewardship, and by including a tangible call to support an Achuar-community initiative, the campaign creates a values framework that functional specifications alone cannot supply. In France, where the outdoor and adventure electronics segment was growing alongside broader participation in trail running, alpinism, and wilderness travel, positioning a technology product through the lens of nature and indigenous knowledge represented a credible — and largely unoccupied — creative territory.
Director Fabien Ecochard leads the production of NATURE'S EYES, working with production company Troublemakers to execute a film that prioritises environmental immersion over conventional product demonstration. The creative team at Leo Burnett France includes Executive Creative Director Kurt Novak and Creative Director David Martin Angelus, whose structural decision to foreground Botei and Kuja as named individuals — rather than unnamed archetypes — shifts the film's register from advertising to documentary portraiture.
The title itself declares the creative logic. NATURE'S EYES positions the TREKKER-X3 as an instrument of vision rather than merely a communications device, suggesting that its ultra resistant construction allows it to function as an extension of human perception in the field. This is a meaningful reframing: where competitor campaigns demonstrate that a rugged smartphone survives punishment, Crosscall's film argues that the right device enables a different quality of attention to the natural world.
Production credits for NATURE'S EYES reflect a deliberate choice to shoot with and around real communities rather than simulate their environments on location scouts built around convenience. The film's single archived media asset, as documented on clapboard.com, carries the visual grammar of expedition filmmaking rather than commercial production — a distinction that serves the campaign's authenticity argument directly. The inclusion of an Instagram follow mechanic and the Achuar-community support call-to-action extends the film beyond a broadcast moment into an ongoing narrative, indicating that Leo Burnett France conceived the creative as an entry point rather than a self-contained statement.
No verified performance data for NATURE'S EYES is publicly available. Independent reach, engagement, or sales-lift figures attributable to the March 2017 campaign have not been reported by Crosscall, Leo Burnett France, or any named third-party source, and no awards records for this campaign have been identified in publicly accessible databases.
Structural analysis, however, offers a meaningful framework for assessment. The campaign operates across at least three distinct effectiveness vectors. First, the documentary approach to featuring Botei and Kuja creates earned-media potential that product-demonstration formats rarely generate — real protagonists with real Instagram presences extend campaign visibility beyond the paid media window. Second, the Achuar-community support element attaches a prosocial dimension to the purchase consideration journey, a mechanism associated with stronger brand recall in values-driven consumer segments. Third, the film format — chosen as the sole medium — concentrates creative investment in a single high-impact asset, a strategy that suits a niche brand operating in France with a narrowly defined target audience rather than mass-market reach ambitions.
The campaign's Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100 reflects a creative execution that demonstrates genuine strategic coherence and production ambition, while acknowledging that the campaign's reach and measurable commercial impact remain unverified. For a brand of Crosscall's scale in the French electronics market, NATURE'S EYES represents a proportionate creative commitment: one film, two human stories, and a product argument built entirely on the integrity of the world it enters.
NATURE'S EYES is a 2017 film campaign made by Leo Burnett France for Crosscall, promoting the TREKKER-X3 rugged smartphone. It features Botei, a Mongolian eagle hunter, and Kuja, a member of the Achuar community in the Amazon, connecting the device's ultra resistant design to authentic outdoor human experience in France and beyond.
Fabien Ecochard directed NATURE'S EYES for Crosscall in 2017. The film was produced by Troublemakers, with Leo Burnett France's Executive Creative Director Kurt Novak and Creative Director David Martin Angelus leading the creative team. The production deliberately adopted a documentary aesthetic rather than a conventional electronics advertisement format.
NATURE'S EYES advertises the Crosscall TREKKER-X3, an ultra resistant rugged smartphone. Launched in France in March 2017, the campaign positions the TREKKER-X3 as essential field equipment for outdoor professionals and adventure participants, differentiating it from mainstream consumer smartphones through real-world human testimony rather than technical specification claims.
Botei is a Mongolian eagle hunter and Kuja is a member of the Achuar community in the Amazon — both real individuals featured in the NATURE'S EYES film. Their daily environments provide the campaign's central durability argument. Audiences were invited to follow both protagonists on Instagram as part of the campaign's social extension.
NATURE'S EYES replaces stress-test footage, common among competitors including CAT Phones and Samsung's Active line, with documentary portraits of real communities. Leo Burnett France built the 2017 Crosscall campaign around cultural identity and environmental stewardship, including a call to support an Achuar-community project, extending the creative beyond product demonstration into values-driven storytelling.
Crosscall's NATURE'S EYES campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100. The score reflects strong strategic coherence and production ambition in the 2017 France campaign, while acknowledging that no verified public performance data exists. The single-film format and documentary approach demonstrate focused creative investment appropriate to Crosscall's position in the French electronics market.
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