Apple Music's New Memoji Billboards Highlight Grammy Nominees Shawn Mendes, Ariana Grande, and Kacey Musgraves

Apple Music has recently launched a new advertising campaign in Los Angeles, showcasing the Memoji versions of musicians including Shawn Mendes, Ariana Grande, and Kacey Musgraves. Apple put up the billboards ahead of the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, which take place on February 10 at the Los Angeles Staples Center.

I love this! Shawn Mendes: The Album has been made into an emoji! It’s on a billboard at Hotel Figueroa in LA ❤️ pic.twitter.com/SfKHGI157e

— Shawn Mendes (@shawnsmutual) February 4, 2019

Apple has placed the billboards at the Hotel Figueroa in LA, which is down the street from the Staples Center. It appears there are multiple billboards in the city, however, including some that are dedicated specifically to each of the three artists and highlighting their Grammy nominations.

.@KaceyMusgraves ‘Golden Hour’ ‌Apple Music‌ emoji billboards around the city in LA! pic.twitter.com/ILIs8ShdKG

— Kacey Musgraves Daily (@musgravesdaily) February 4, 2019

Memojis are animated emoji characters that can take the form of each user's personal appearance, and using the TrueDepth camera system on iPhone X family devices, you can animate the Memojis with your facial movements. Apple has used Animoji in its ads a few times previously, including for last year's Grammy awards. Those commercials had the alien Animoji singing "Redbone" by Childish Gambino and the Animoji dog, fox, and poop singing "Stir Fry" from Migos.

As for the nominations, Shawn Mendes has two, one for song of the year ("In My Blood") and one for best pop vocal album (the self-titled "Shawn Mendes"). Ariana Grande was also nominated twice this year, for best pop solo performance ("God Is A Woman") and best pop vocal album ("Sweetener"). Lastly, Kacey Musgraves received four nominations, for album of the year ("Golden Hour"), best country solo performance ("Butterflies"), best country song ("Space Cowboy"), and best country album.