In the most recent Apple iPhone advertising campaign promoting and humanizing the phone’s Siri feature, the company decided to recruit the quirky actress/indie songstress Zooey Deschanel and high profiled celebrity, Samuel L. Jackson to showcase Siri’s capabilities. The ads are short, sweet and honestly not all that exciting with Jackson and Deschanel giving Siri orders while acting like “every day” people. They follow the company’s marketing strategy of depicting “normal people doing amazing things with Apple products”.
The ads are unique, however, because the use of celebrity endorsements is rare for the company. Apple typically lets the products speak for themselves. However, Siri is really the star of the iPhone ads – Deschanel and Jackson play supporting roles and are merely there to interact with the phone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azBzUEFZIss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Dt0YlN2nM
Celebrity endorsements can be a very powerful marketing tool for businesses – especially now in a society where fans can follow and connect with musicians, actors, and athletes through social media networks. Deschanel currently has a following of more than 1.1 million Fans on Facebook and Jackson also brings a similarly sized fan base to the ad campaign. Popular stars have always provided a boost to well thought out marketing campaigns, but in the social age, ads now have the potential of going viral through the internet with the help of fans.
Apple’s ad campaign performed very well with young women who were less affected by Apple’s feature-focused ads promoting the iPhone earlier in the year. And while endorsements can be risky because of the polarizing factor of many celebrities, using both Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson (celebrities with a broader appeal) was a very effective and profitable strategy for Apple.
Sources:
http://simunlockiphone5.com/apple-airs-new-iphone-tv-ads-featuring-samuel-l-jackson-and-zooey-deschanel-updated/
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/04/16/new_samuel_l_jackson_commercial.html
http://www.techedon.com/2012/04/18/apple/social-theres-two-versions-of-apples-samuel-l-jackson-siri-ad-ones-not-by-apple/#more-4026
http://www.samgrant.com/tag/samuel-l-jackson/
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/celebrity-endorsement
9206327648
