iPhone Moves from Innovators to Early Adopters

I was always enthralled by the iPhone commercials that ran before the phone's launch at the end of June, not only because of my attraction to the phone itself, but because of the subtly beautiful art direction and the overall simplicity. The TBWA/Chiat/Day creatives were dead-on in keeping the ads completely feature-centered while staying true to the Apple brand personality of beauty, simplicity, and just the right amount of elitist and cool. Even now, I get little chills as the super changes with the beat of the music at the end. Perfect.

This campaign did a fantastic job creating buzz, thanks in part to its media placement. Even my 60-year-old parents, who would never read an online press release on Apple.com and might overlook blurbs about iPhone's arrival in the paper and Newsweek, were not only aware of the product but of its release date. Selling a million iPhones in 74 days sounds like successful buzz to me, especially at $400 or $600 a pop in a saturated market.



So the new campaign. As an iPhone owner/enthusiast myself, I don't have a hard time believing stories like this. The guy who had one phone for texting and one phone for making calls is a little over the top, but all these other stories are completely realistic for me. Just the other day I used my iPhone to Google the phone number of a car dealership, call them, set up an appointment, and get directions, all while walking to my apartment from class. Classic Apple simplicity, but I feel a giant leap away from the rebellion against the masses that has marked the brand since "1984."

Is this a bad thing? Maybe Apple, true to its name change from "Apple Computers" to "Apple, Inc." is segmenting its targets a little more (a little better?) than it has in the past. Instead of focusing solely on the brand personality, Apple is starting to gain some real insights into different consumers' personality and tailor their messages to unite the two.

The point is that iPhone has made a very clear move away from a launch campaign to raise awareness of the sheer coolness of iPhone to driving home what these benefits can do for the user every day. This change in campaign aligned almost perfectly with the price cut from $600 to $400, another sign that the "innovator" market had been exhausted. Onto the early adopters, who need a little more encouragement than just, "Cool! Look at how bright that screen is!"

Maybe the position could be summed up as "iPhone makes life better by giving you everything you need, wherever you are." Not only do I wholeheartedly agree, I think they're pushing the benefits to the front and making the brand the absolute hero. I feel like an emphasis on benefits or consumer values and making the brand heroic is lost in some big campaigns (look for the rant on Kleenex that will follow shortly).

So two thumbs up, TBWA/Chiat/Day. Just get rid of that guy who had a Blackberry and a cell phone, okay? Let me tell you about avoiding traffic with Google maps instead.