Commentary
Latest iPhone Spots Add Snob Appeal
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, March 17, 2011
With their familiar creative elements -- white background, innocuous piano music and hands-on demos -- Apple's iPhone ads have over the years become an easy target for parody, from Verizon's "There's A Map For That" ads to viral fodder like this. That hasn't stopped Apple from rolling out the same motif again in a new trio of iPhone 4 ads separately highlighting iBooks, iTunes and the App Store.
Enter Mr. Hand and cue annoying piano music and affectless voiceover. The new thematic wrinkle in this series of TV ads posted on YouTube is that if you don't have an iPhone, you simply can't enter the magical realm of digital media wonders it offers. It's not just music, or books or apps, but the whole (closed) Apple ecoystem. That's summed up in the ending tag line, "If you don't have an iPhone, well, you don't have an iPhone."
The tone is a tad more defensive and elitist than prior Apple ads, perhaps betraying more concern about heightened competition from the likes of Android and Amazon. It's the closest Apple has come to saying if you don't have an iPhone, you're a loser. In short, the benefits of the iconic Apple device are self-evident -- if you don't get it, you just don't get it. Or so the company seems to be saying.
When it comes to apps, the App Store ad spotlights mobile commerce and 2D codes, with demos focused on using Delta's iPhone app to get a boarding pass and the Starbucks Card Mobile app to buy a cup of coffee by holding its barcode up to a companion reader. Come to think of it, I've never noticed anyone actually using the app to pay for anything at Starbucks (at least in New York).
If the coffee chain suddenly sees a surge in downloads, it can thank Apple for the plug. Other brands whose apps are pictured on the phone screen in the ad include Chase, eBay (fashion app), The Economist and IMDB. But if you don't have an iPhone, well, you just don't know what you're missing. In fact, you probably shouldn't even show your face in public.
Mark Walsh can be reached at walsh@mediapost.com
Wow. Interesting write up. The ad caught my eye the other night because of the boarding card. I had just used my phone that way the other day. On my way back from OMMA Global San Francisco, I noticed my plane had not yet arrived at the gate and we were five minutes from supposedly boarding, so I grabbed my iPhone, went to the app store and typed in "Continental." A few minutes later my new Continental Airlines App told me my plane was coming from Newark, was running 30 minutes late arriving, but would only be 20 minutes late departing. As for the boarding card, I had already checked in via Safari and used my mobile phone boarding code to get through security to the gate. And as for the slick new Starbucks app, I've been breezing through Starbucks lately since my Starbucks app not only consolidated the four gift cards I had lying around the house, but also automatically re-ups my account when it gets low enough, makes paying a snap and gives me rewards to boot. And yeah, I see plenty of people using the app to buy their coffee and scones. If they're anything like me, they should see a mild boost in revs, which is way better than downloads. But then, if you don't have an iPhone, you don't have the app, so you can't really write anything truly meaningful about it.