For years Apple has thrived on tapping into our desires for luxury and our aspirations to be cool. We purchased product after product to be on the cutting edge, to be hip, to feel like minimalists, and to debunk corporate norms. And even with more and more people becoming Mac users - diluting our specialness - those same emotions still drive us to spend hundreds of dollars and hours of time in Apple stores around the world.
With their release of the new iPhone 4, Apple is adding another layer of emotion - personal connection - and proving that advanced technology can actually help bring us closer together. This is a side of Apple we have not seen for a long time, possibly ever.
See all the ads here: http://www.apple.com/iphone/gallery/ads.html
4 out of these 5 ads make me cry! (And for the record, I'm not a cryer.) Apple ads have never made me cry. They've made me want to dance, poke fun at PC users, feel proud for thinking differently, and feel cool for buying their products. But what a genius way to push their new phone feature of video calls. They could have easily defaulted to their usual style of making it cool - friends showing off to one another.
But that would have been too predictable and probably wouldn't have led to many sales. Instead, they reached out of their iphone, through the TV screen, and so deep into my heart that I feel compelled to call my father directly after watching one of their spots just to see his face and tell him I love him.
Just a few days ago, Branding Strategy Insider blog posted this piece on how to create strong emotional responses for your brand or product.
If you take a quick look, you'll see that Apple's new ads meet every single one of these criteria: make it sensory, keep it simple, focus on faces, make it memorable and relevant, sell hope, don't lead with price, mirror the audience's values, and make it believable.
Once again, Steve Jobs and Apple prove to be a marketing force to be reckoned with. But that's just my 2 cents.
