Some of Apple’s recent advertisements for the iPhone 5 has bothered me for some time now. The ads in question are their “Brilliant” and “Discover” ads seen below:
Brilliant:
Discover:
My biggest issue with this ad is that while it might seem to build interest in the new iPhone 5 through the apps shown in the ad, there is nothing showing me which apps these are and how to set them up to do the cool things demonstrated in the video. Having looked around for these apps it is clear that many of these either require 3rd party devices to accomplish the cool tricks shown in the ad or a lot of configuration that your average user is just not going to understand. Apple should have put at least some sort of watermark or overlay into the video to list the names of the apps.
Apps shown in the ad include Gojee, Cards, Mike V: Skateboard Party, Starbucks,iBooks, MyScript Calculator, Philips Hue, GarageBand, Houzz, The Elements for iPhone 4, Apple Maps, Infinity Blade 2, Cleartune, Solar Walk, iPhoto, Yelp, and Shazam.
In my opinion these ads could have been doubly effective if they had just included some sort of watermark or overlay into the video to list the names of the apps. TV Shows and some commercials have started doing this with Twitter Hashtags and also song titles used in commercials as a way to promote the other items in their ads. Apple could take a cue from these advertisers and go a long way to supporting their app dev community.
Another great article on Apple ads is this one which critiques the subtext of Apple’s “Designed in California” ad – http://www.fastcodesign.com/1673020/in-20-years-we-re-all-going-to-realize-this-apple-ad-is-nuts
Apple marketers take note, follow through on your thoughts and remember to personalize the experience.
