Apple versus Samsung and the effectiveness of simple advertising
This is one of my least-favourite Apple adverts, for the iPhone 4:
I dislike it to some extent merely because of the intro, which, rarely for Apple, is about a technical component, the lithium polymer battery. And yet in 30 seconds, it nonetheless shows:
- Use of the email client, with an embedded chart (“work”);
- An ice-hockey videogame (“play”);
- A movie being played (“laugh”);
- Album navigation in the iPod app (“listen”);
- Video being taken in the Camera app (“shoot”);
- Basic video-editing being worked on (“edit”);
- The SMS app sending the video (“share”);
- A Facebook feed (“update”);
- A game being installed (“download”);
- iBooks in use (“read”);
- A tweet being composed (“write”);
- A FaceTime conversation.
In other words, the advert is primarily about what you can do with the device, showing a dozen things consumers might be interested in.
Compare it with the Samsung’s Galaxy SII ad below, which says to ‘unleash your fingers’ by spending more than three times the length of Apple’s ad showing “JayFunk, the internet Finger Tutting phenomenon” titting about with his fingers in front of the camera. It’s 1:39 in before the product is even shown, and at no point is it ever shown in action.
It’d certainly be interesting to see how consumers react to these different approaches. I suspect the latter might have people amused by the finger tutter but immediately forgetting the brand, while Apple’s had is more likely to have people realising the iPhone does more than they thought, and therefore consider actually buying one.
Great perspective, and a valid opinion. Thanks for sharing!
Nice thoughts and I can only agree with you.
After see the Samsung ad I gotta admit great work and nice effets, but I also ask my self what can this phone actually do? Does it give you the abilitiy to play around with your fingers like he does or does it have other features?
After watching the ad I usually should want to buy the product. Nope. Not this time (FYI I’m an Apple Fanboy so wouldn’t even think of it)
I believe you’re equating apples to oranges (excuse the pun). The Apple advert is focused on utility, and caters to an audience of viewers that may not be aware of all the things you can do on a smartphone these days (think older demographic). The Samsung ad on the other hand is targeted towards a completely different group — young/mobile consumers who are already well aware of all the things smartphones can do — and would be more engaged visually/aurally by something like you see there. Samsung’s ad is playful, magical, culturally in-tune, and fun to watch. It would also be the type of advert someone skimming through commercials on their DVR would pause/rewind to get a look at. The same audience would cruise right by Apple’s.
So from my perspective, both ads are equally effective but to separate audiences.
@Todd: Hence my conclusion that I would be interested to see responses. Personally, I think Samsung’s ad is visually interesting, but so are a LOT of adverts these days. Most have per-second budgets higher than the biggest Hollywood movies. Thing is, so many of them are pretty and dazzling, but they don’t advertise the product and make THAT memorable. In the UK, there was a hugely popular advert a while back that had an ape drumming to Phil Collins. People talked about the ‘advert with the drumming monkey’, not ‘the Cadbury ad’, because most people forget who the ad was. That’s how the Samsung ad seems to me—an interesting ad where you immediately forget the brand.
As for kids, there was a lovely blog post I saw a while back from a teen who’d seen the iPad ads and designed she’d sooner have one than a laptop, because “you can do more with the iPad”. So Apple’s straightforward ads might not be ‘hip’, but they nonetheless are informative, and that has the potential to be useful across the entire range of potential customers, at the expense of not being so visually dazzling.