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If you’re seeing Deja Vu in Apple’s AirPods commercial, you’re not wrong. And Apple knows.

For 2019, they decided that these ads needed a major face-lift if they were to stay relevant, and what better way to do it than with the AirPods. In their first commercial, they took design elements from the original ipod commercial, such as color contrast and the earphones being visible, and re-worked them into delivering a new experience for consumers. In their first commercial, we see that once our protagonist puts on his AirPods, he’s fully immersed in the music and the outside environment is irrelevant to him, similar to the old ipod ads. 

I really enjoyed this commercial, not only because of the call-backs to the original Apple advertising, but how it conveys to the audience that AirPods, and other Apple Music products, are truly transformative experiences that need to be experienced by everyone. Apple’s claim that they are trying to convey is that while they aren’t innovating per say, they can deliver these features in a completely revolutionary way, which would be an advantage claim. This requires an embrace of creativity, on both the part of Apple, and the agency. By seeing the progression in their Advertising, and in the product themselves, we can see that although things may change, what remains true is that Apple products deliver the definitive creative experience, and are essentially required for those in the creative field.

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What’s Halo Top’s new way of selling ice cream? Crushing kids’ dreams...

Growing up as a kid, one of the best memories anyone can have is getting ice cream. I remember jumping out of my house, running in the direction of the ice cream truck no matter what time it was, if I had any money, or my parents said otherwise. The ice cream truck, or the fudgey wudgey man for those who spent their summers down the beach, is a key ingredient of a good childhood. When I was a kid, I thought one of the best things about being an adult was that I could eat ice cream all day long, without anyone telling me no. As it turns out, eating ice cream all day is absolutely terrible for your body, and for many people they will only eat ice cream to cheer themselves up.

Halo Top ice cream, a brand that markets themselves as a healthy alternative to ice cream, knows this all too well. In their latest ad campaign, they really drive their selling point “Ice Cream for Adults” home, by rejecting kids’ pleas for ice cream, only offering it to those who have experienced real-life struggles or difficulties. This ice cream isn’t for the kid who got his chores done early, it’s for the man who had his heart broken, the one who is short on a mortgage payment, or the woman who is doing everything she can to advance her career. The children in the commercial don’t get what the nihilistic ice-cream man is trying to say, but in time they will as they reach adulthood. And that is when they will be ready to eat Halo Top.

 72nd Sunny, a New York-based agency, knocked it out of the park in delivering this message, allowing adults to relate to the struggles of being out in the real world, and communicating to their audience that although they may have a terrible day, they won’t feel terrible for eating some ice cream. (This is a concept that Halo Top already explored in last years’ campaign)

This ad is extremely creative, because it uses multiple framing to deliver its message across. In order to convey their message, Halo Top uses the exact opposite of their intended target market, bright young kids, to sell ice cream to gloomy, anxiety-ridden adults. It’s similar to kids being used in car commercials, but the similarities stop in terms of the execution. From intention, messaging, and use, Halo Top’s use of children in their commercials is entirely different. Instead of showing children in their ads to accommodate them, and show that they can enjoy the product too like car commercials, Halo Top makes it known that this really is ice cream for grown-ups. This ad shows the effectiveness of changing up your creative strategy, and how you can deliver a better message from an entirely different perspective. They essentially re-framed their “ice cream for adults” tagline into “ice cream that definitely isn’t meant for kids” in order to appeal to the millennial generation who just entered the “real world”, and based on the pitch they’re giving to consumers, I believe that it will boost sales tremendously. 

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Apple shows it takes privacy seriously, in a public ad campaign

In this day and age, privacy is at the forefront of public and consumer discourse. it seems like either everything can be hacked, or already has. Concurrently, the line between our public and private lives has been deteriorated. As a consequence of these two phenomena, people value their privacy more than ever. And in the face of prominent data breaches, Apple wants to let the public know that they value your privacy, as much as you value your own.

In their recent 60-second ad, designed for both TV and social media audiences, they use familiar situations to convey how we each value our own privacy. Whether its from a “no trespassing” sign, a ‘menacing�� guard dog, or locking your doors (rather excessively), they create familiarity with the audience by letting them know that the people behind the creation of the iphone are regular human beings, who lock their own doors, close their blinds, and put passwords on their phones. The biggest takeaway from this advertising piece is that from a policy standpoint, Apple stands with the people in the public-private debate. From fingerprint scanners, face scanners, and encryption, Apple is putting their money where their mouth is in terms of delivering the message to their consumers, and providing products that meet consumer’s expectations in regards to privacy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this ad, because of its use of multiple framing to deliver a message that is resonant to whoever views this short clip. We might think its weird that someone would put a “no trespassing” sign on their yard, but when viewed through our own perspectives, like having a conversation at the restaurant, we see exactly what people mean when they say they value privacy. By placing themselves in the mind of the consumer, beyond any market research, there are fundamental values that subconsciously drive people to buy the way they do, and privacy is certainly one of them. In order to drive this message across, they deliver the same sentiment across multiple perspectives, which required both apple and the ad agency to go outside of their comfort zone, ad re-examine how they can convey to their audience that when it comes to privacy, Apple means business. With their introduction of Apple pay, touch and face unlocking, plus their own credit card, Apple needed to re-examine how to highlight the design philosophy behind the iphone in terms of privacy, and what better way to do it than to release an ad campaign in the eyes of the consumer. Note that Apple isn’t particularly groundbreaking in this campaign, unlike their earlier campaigns “1984″ and “The Crazy Ones”. Google has been using this style of commercials for their Pixel Phones and Chromebooks, by using multiple framing to create commercials that give the products and brands a personality dimension that a simple feature-benefits approach simply cannot.

As you can see, Apple isn’t reinventing the wheel here, but putting their own spin on a particularly effective method. As innovative as Apple is, its okay that they weren’t the first company to release ads in this style. Like their products, they are fine letting other companies innovate because they act as a test market for these features. Since the google commercials did well, they knew making one of their own, in an entirely new perspective to deliver their competitive advantage of privacy, was a guaranteed hit. And with this commercial, they are ensuring that more and more people are using an iphone to keep themselves secured in an age where our digital footprint is completely vulnerable.