Apple has posted their new iPhone teaser ad titled, “Hello” on Apple.com. The new commercial aired last night during the 79th Annual Academy Awards. The ad shows a series quick cuts from films and TV shows where the characters are answering the phone and saying “hello”. The spots end with a rotating iPhone, the text “Hello”, an iPhone image, a message that says, “Coming in June”, and a white Apple logo. Interestingly, there is no URL and no text that would indicate the name of the product, iPhone. Personally, I felt the ads probably had little or no impact on anyone who isn’t already aware of the iPhone. Obviously Apple used film and TV images to tie in with the Oscars, but I didn’t find the ad very exciting or compelling. In case you missed it the ad is now available for viewing on Apple’s iPhone page.
[View iPhone Teaser Ad]
This ad ran during tonight’s 24, too.
I thought that the add was good. Very unique and clever. Simple and left people who didn’t know about it wanting to know more about what that exquisite piece of technology is. But thats just me.
Is it just me or is the iPhone “Hello” ad fairly homogeneous. In an ad which features about 30 movies, the only person of color is Samuel L. Jackson. Is Apple intentionally trying to market the iPhone to white folks + Sam Jackson? I’m extremely disappointed with the ad because of its lack of racial diversity.
Eric,
Maybe that’s because they were trying to market the iPhone with the use of recognizable characters answering the phone with films that they have rights to? Did you think about that? Or maybe, Apple is SO racially diverse, that they can use mostly white people, because that’s a race too! Maybe its come to the point where the push for racial diversity means that they need to re-include white people!
For all the progress that is made, there’s always those comments that take it an extra step backward.
It’s an ad showing recognizable TV/Movie characters from the past to present.
Are they trying to say this phone is for movie stars? Please!
Anyway, I thought the ad was clever and takes on Apple’s style of ads. None of their ads really ever show much about the product.
I think a shot at the end with someone answering an iPhone saying “hello?” would have finished off the ad nicely, especially if the movie clips had been in chronological order. Perhaps the iPhone being the newest, coolest phone standard wasn’t the direction Apple was going with the ad, but I still think it would’ve been neat.
It was a good ad, but it needed to have something else. something to sow that it was brand new, and was ‘revolutionary’ . but what can I say, an ad with amilie and anchorman. good. how bout you get it out, rather than get out ads.
The ad was brilliant. If you saw it during the show, the first time it aired it seemed to be part of the oscars show as they aften do these types of montages. Then “Hello”: is it escaping everyone that this is the first thing the Macintosh said to the world? (And then the iMac with “Hello again”) Then, “Coming in June”(as in “to a theatre near you”), accompanied by a really freaky sound then ends in a sort of telephone ring.
This is about branding. And it was perfect for the oscars. Everyone was talking about it the next day. Mission accomplished (and very tasteful, complimented the oscars, and, yes, targeted the type of person who is interested in watching the oscars.
There is a reason it is called a teaser.
apple comercials are engaging, your drawn in by the universial experience of communicationg by telephone.
It’s a very effective approach, insted of hitting people over the head with technical mojo.
Why did Apple waste their time with this. They should have done an ad in the vain of the “Get A Mac” ads, that would have been a lot more effective I think. They could have also done some like this:
http://www.digg.com/apple/Hi_I_m_an_iPhone_And_I_m_a_Smartphone
That would have at least been more amusing.
Isn’t Audrey Tatou just adorable :)?
I agree with Jack that I thought it was part of the Oscars and was very surprised by the ending! Of course it was a bit redundant by the third time on a never ending Oscar show.
Kenny / Craig,
Alright, what if the ad had featured 24 African American men, 6 African American women, and Harrison Ford? or 24 Latinos, 6 Latinas, and Will Smith?
Would you simply say that Apple was advertising a product to the general US populace? I highly doubt it.
There are a lot of “recognizable” movie stars who are folks of color. Apple’s marketers have succumbed to the white supremacy that is in most television commercials. White folks in ad spots are seen as “normal” whereas an ad that featured an overwhelming majority of people of color would be seen as marketing for a specific demographic.
“There are a lot of “recognizable†movie stars who are folks of color. Apple’s marketers have succumbed to the white supremacy that is in most television commercials.”
Why does everything have to be about race? Why do we have to have ads where we have certain number of people of certain race, otherwise it’s a “sign of white supremacy”. Not everything is about race, and not everything is racism. I never thought about race back when I watch “Bill Cosby Show”. But now we have an ad where we have only one black person, and someone gets their panties in a bunch? The fact that you even paid attention to something like that is quite telling.
“whereas an ad that featured an overwhelming majority of people of color would be seen as marketing for a specific demographic.”
Overwhelming majority of people in that ad were “people of color”. White is color as well ;). And yes, having an ad composed of just black people would have seem strange, for the sole reason that about 75-80% of Americans are white.
My feelings about this whole “incident”? Boo-friggin-hoo.
Race and having to think about race is usually not very important for/to white folks. It’s part of the phenomenon of whiteness in that being white means being the “norm” while people of color are seen as the “other.”
Of course you didn’t think about race when you watched the Cosby Show. The Cosby Show was primarily designed/written to appeal to WHITE PEOPLE!
By the way, just to clarify, I am a white guy. I agree, it is very telling that I pay attention to race. It’s a very unique trait for a white person.
Yes, white is a color. However, white people do not usually call themselves “people of color.” The term, People of Color or Person of Color, has been claimed by people in the US who identify as African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American.
It’s too bad that you have chosen to diminish my comments.
Here is my point, one more time in the simplest terms I can offer:
A commercial full of white people = marketing for everyone including people of color.
A commercial featuring people of color = marketing solely for people of color.
“Of course you didn’t think about race when you watched the Cosby Show. The Cosby Show was primarily designed/written to appeal to WHITE PEOPLE!”
And the actors were about 99% black. Yet I never thought “Hmmm, why is everyone black?”. That’s my point. To me, it was a total non-issue. Race does not matter to me one bit, yet it does to you. In a way, you are demonstrating a subset of the thinking that racist people have: You are overly sensitive about race. Racists are like that, their feelings on the matter are just expressed in a negative manner. Yet they, like you, are hypersensitive about race.
If this is a case of white supremacy, why did they have Samuel L. Jackson in there? Would it be OK if they had added few more black actors in there, so that their number would be the same as their share of the total population is? Maybe they had mostly white actors there, since in the last 50 years or so (the timespan of the actors in the ad) most actors have been white?
“It’s too bad that you have chosen to diminish my comments.”
I just think that you are hypersensitive about this. For some reason I’m reminded of the case when a white boy from South-Africa ran for the “African-American student of the year” award in some school. He was suspended. Even though he was more “African-American” than anyone else in the school.
So we have a case when a frigging TV-ad had mostly white people in it. What do you decide to do? Run around screaming “It’s white supremacy!”. Lighten up a bit, you’ll be happier that way.
That’s probably because the majority of television shows then and now feature white folks. Race usually does not matter to folks who are members of the dominant paradigm who have never had to endure racially-oriented oppression. Race matters to people of color because as a social construct, race has been the rationale for genocide, rape, slavery, etc.
I am sensitive about race because I am actively trying to educate folks about how the “norming” of whiteness is part of an institutionalized system of white privilege that serves to oppress folks in marginalized groups. It is important to ask why in the last 50 years, in a country that has a lot of racial diversity, most actors have been white? I think it’s due to racism.
The white kid from South Africa probably was chastised since he was trying to benefit from his “African” identity when Black folks from South Africa have undergone years of oppression.
I think it’s pretty typical of white folks to try to diminish anti-racist prose. It pushes buttons and makes white people uncomfortable. Recognizing and admitting that white privilege and covert white supremacy exists in marketing is not an easy thing for most white folks.
“That’s probably because the majority of television shows then and now feature white folks.”
Sorry, but that does not make any sense. If all actors on tv were white, and we suddenly got a tv-show where everyone was black. Wouldn’t that mean that people would pay more attention to the race? Yet I (for example) never paid any attention to it. To me, they were people. They weren’t black people, they were just people. You apparently don’t see things like that. You don’t see “people”, you see “black people” and “white people”. You are hypersensitive about race, just like racists are.
“The white kid from South Africa probably was chastised since he was trying to benefit from his “African†identity when Black folks from South Africa have undergone years of oppression.”
No, he was chasticed because the award was meant for black people, and he was white. Even though he was “African-American” and the award was for “African-Americans”. And how do we define who is black and who is white?
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/22/king.controversy.ap/
“I think it’s pretty typical of white folks to try to diminish anti-racist prose. It pushes buttons and makes white people uncomfortable.”
No, I just find hysterical screaming and foaming at the mouth fanaticsm to be annoying. I get annoyed when someone sees a really minor thing and starts screaming “won’t someone please think of the blacks/children/whales?!?!?!”. And when someone gets annoyed by that, it’s “You are just diminishing my prose, because I’m right”. No, it’s not that. It’s just that the hysteria starts to get annoying.
Wow people. I am all for a lively debate, but you may be moving a bit beyond a Mac technology blog. Can we take the social political debate elsewhere?