Aside from the big product announcements, Apple unveiled a new advertising theme yesterday at the WWDC: Designed by Apple in California. It is reminiscent of the ‘Think Different’ ads at least in the role its meant to play. I feel it is meant to reiterate Apple’s approach to business – that its all about the experience of a product. And that they are engineers and artists…craftsmen and inventors. It fulfils a dual role: makes current consumers feel good about Apple and hopefully creates some dissonance in competition user’s minds.
Agency: TBWA
The voice over in the ads form the copy of these images in the Apple website.
I also found the intro video played out at the WWDC interesting – it subtly took jibes at ‘competitors’ (read Samsung?) and had some nice copy.
‘We start to confuse convenience with joy; abundance with choice…the first thing we ask is ‘what do we want people to feel?’…everything we touch enhances each life it touches.’
I also feel that Apple felt the need to craft such a ‘corporate brand’ message in the wake of new competition, changing times and consumer expectations. It no longer is the only company that could deliver customer delight in the space it operates – there is tough competition. The consumer is changing – she has choice in great hardware and software and has the power of social media to weigh in her influence. This seems like an attempt to differentiate Apple at the philosophy level (not a product level) and hence may work. Partly because some of the key competition has a product approach, not a higher order approach to business.
3 Comments
The thing with great copy is that it makes u believe for a moment. The problem here is that apple has taken every great idea from Samsung, Motorola, bb10 and htc and packed it in to one UI and then created this fable that its a great idea THEY have come up with. Truth be told, the copy had me fooled till the very last line, which is where their pandering to the US audience woke me up. Hope they fix the UI by the time they release iOS7 🙂