The power of Apple's FaceTime commercial

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/10/apple-facetime-commercial/

by gvb • 16 years ago

54 64 16 years ago

What's the reach of this ad? I've never seen it. Are they getting tech writers to review the ad itself in an attempt to make people that don't watch TV commercials see it?

krschultz• 16 years ago

Actually pretty wide, I barely see any TV and I have seen it a several times. It has been about for about a week as far as I can tell.

elblanco• 16 years ago

Dunno, I don't watch much TV. But I do catch a few shows on my DVR. Haven't seen it at all.

SoftwareMaven• 16 years ago

It is pretty broad. I've seen past it several times on my DVR, in everything from motorcycle races through the Daily Show.

carterschonwald• 16 years ago

those who are looking at these comments but haven't seen the ad yet, please do so. Irrespective of its marketing merit, its amazingly well done.

amichail2• 16 years ago

The only Apple ad that affected me on an emotional level is Think Different. In fact, it's the best commercial I've ever seen.

jonknee5• 16 years ago

I've seen it on at bars and heard it openly mocked--the scenarios in the commercial are so narrow that it can easily make it look useless (or unrealistic like the soldier overseas who not only has an iPhone 4 but access to high-speed WiFi without a firewall).

Save for deaf people and gadget reviewers, few people want to see each other during phone calls on a regular basis. At the same time millions of people want to IM each other, but they haven't built that in yet.

jamn• 16 years ago

I disagree.

As an international student in the US, I personally would enormously benefit from a cell phone that can do video conversations well. My family lives thousands of miles away, and seeing their faces is actually something I really value. We communicate via Skype constantly for the video functions, but this really limits the flexibility of where I can take the calls.

I am going to be working far away from my university, and I will be using video conference to talk to my girlfriend while I'm away. I am considering getting a pair of iPhones for the ease of use and convenience (she's not very tech savvy).

As to IMs, I personally am a heavy IM user, and there's a number of iPhone applications for IMing (Palringo, Beejive, Windows Live Messenger come to mind). I don't use it because it is just too bothersome to have extended conversations when typing with any small keyboard.

Of course, I'm not implying that just because I feel like this would anybody else do, but I don't think it's as crystal clear as the OP describes.

jonknee5• 16 years ago

Obviously there are markets for the technology, but they aren't huge and with the existing limitations it's not nearly as easy as the commercial makes it seem. The soldier doesn't have WiFi (or money for two iPhones). The hospital doesn't either for that matter. Grandma and grandpa would have to setup a wireless network before being able to see the granddaughter graduate. At least with my grandparents that means you have to set it up and then fix it every time you visit. The deaf demo is the most realistic, but it can be hard to sign with one hand so a laptop with a webcam will work better in many situations (or frankly just SMS/IM).

Even with the Face Time technical limitations, the lack of video calling isn't a technical problem but a social one. I've had a laptop with a webcam for 5 years and used video calling a handful of times with at least two of them being just to get screenshots for a book on OS X. It makes a great demo, but at the end of the day I almost always prefer text to audio and audio to video.

asmithmd1• 16 years ago

Girlfreind you say... How many calls until FaceTime becomes crotch time. I put the over/under at 3.

richcollins• 16 years ago

Almost no one watching the commercial knows that you need wifi without a firewall.

xenophanes• 16 years ago

You don't need wifi without a firewall.

It's supposed to "just work". In an iPhone review (at Ars? One of the big sites.) they tested this, and it worked fine for home use (home users usually do have a firewall...), it only choked, sometimes, on corporate firewalls.

adamesque• 16 years ago

There's nothing in the commercial, actually, that depicts ordinary, routine phone calls. They're intimate conversations between people with deep relationships to each other, who are separated and cannot be together – sometimes at critical, god-I-wish-I-had-a-teleporter moments.

If you've felt the kind of deep longing that sort of separation can cause, you'll immediately understand what Apple is selling here. A lifeline to the ones you love.

Believe me, at those moments there's not a chance you'd rather just be on IM.

Naga• 16 years ago

I've always used Skype for that.

axod3• 16 years ago

So Apple have made a skype clone for their iPhone :/

Call me unmoved, and unexcited. Why is this important? We've been doing video conferencing for decades now.

You can also just download 'fring' for free on Android to get skype video calls. (You can even use it on 3G or whatever you feel like. Unlike Apple which restricts everything).

Only Apple can routinely release decades old technology and hail it as revolutionary, and seem to get away with it.

edderly2• 16 years ago

"critical" moments?

Not really. I think most people would argue as social animals that being physically present at an event underlines the importance and respect for others. No one sane dials into someone's wedding or funeral right?

For me that's why only the opening sequence of the advert worked - keeping in visual contact with your child. The deaf conversation is thrown in as a calculated validation of the goodness of FaceTime, given this, what cold soul could not understand the importance of this technology?

I'm sure medical staff are buzzing with anticipation about their future arguments with hipsters trying to use their phones in scanning units where such devices are usually prohibited.

Sidnicious• 16 years ago

As a hacker, I'm much more excited by FaceTime as (finally!) a standard for video calling than on iPhones specifically.

But, FaceTime could also work for the general public because up until now, video calling took effort and planning.

Even with Skype, both parties have to sign up for accounts, exchange screen names, make sure they have computers with a camera, speakers, and microphone. If you're really lucky, the computer will be a laptop. And both users have to be at their computers and signed into Skype to make the call, which means that in a lot of cases a video call ends up being coordinated over the phone beforehand.

FaceTime just requires that you know each other's phone numbers, (when the spec is released, I'm sure big, bright "FaceTime Compatible!" stickers will show up on lots of phones) and, for now, be on WiFi. "Upgrading" from a phone call to a video call is as simple as pressing a button. The "cost" to make a call is so much lower.

ChRoss• 16 years ago

I think to be fair, in order to use FaceTime: both parties have to sign up to certain provider, buy iPhone4 (we're talking as per current. What will happen in future, who knows?)

By the way, as I don't have iPhone4, I curious about this scenario, what will happen if I'm on FaceTime chat with someone, and another people call my number? Will the call go through and the FaceTime chat dropped?

arn• 16 years ago

You must not have kids yet.

stcredzero• 16 years ago

I'm not sure what it is about this commercial, but when I see it, I start thinking about mortality and the ephemeral nature of life. According to the article, the Greek roots of "nostaligia" mean "an old wound." I think that's very appropriate. I get the same background feeling from this commercial that I get from watching the first part of Pixar's "Up." I'd love to see a cinematographer's analysis of both of those pieces.

wallflower2• 16 years ago

EDIT: Fixed recursion

Up! Director Peter Docter's interview on the "Married Life" scene:

"From a "feel" standpoint, it was the sense of a life lived, and not only the highs, but the lows. That's why we put in a couple of dark moments... It actually feels more real, and I think that's how you remember life being like."

"Strangely, we got a couple of home movies from the Internet -- Michael Giacchino has a collection that I think he ordered from EBay. And we had no idea who the people in them were, but we'd watch their lives progress and piece them together -- we'd note, "Oh, now there's a new kid in the picture. And what happened to that person? I guess they must've moved away." It was strangely compelling."

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/news/la-etw-pete-docter25-201...

Interesting and weird academic view on Sam Mendes' FaceTime ad:

"Distance, work, and duty separate these individuals from their primary relationships, but, the film implies, the phone can mediate these contingencies and keep users connected to life's truly important moments."

"But the phone, in turn, obscures these flows and systems to the extent that it mediates between them and the relationships of its users as an object allowing for immediate emotional interconnectivity."

http://mwnau.posterous.com/absence-mediation-and-emotional-o...

AndyKelley2• 16 years ago

that last link you gave is the OP ;)

gvb• 16 years ago

There is an interesting and applicable point made in "The American Gustation Crisis of 1985" http://www.damninteresting.com/the-american-gustation-crisis... (aka. How Coca-Cola won the war).

In retrospect, some marketers believe that the failure of New Coke may have had something to do with sensation transference, a human oddity first described by Louis Cheskin in the 1940s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Cheskin#Sensation_transfe... Cheskin demonstrated that people will unconsciously associate imagery, sounds, tastes, aromas, and textures into their general impression of a product, even if such associations are unintended or inaccurate.

What Apple is doing with the commercial, as pointed out by MG Siegler, is using our emotions, specifically our love of our family and friends, to the iPhone, associating that emotion and love to the iPhone. Powerful. Scary.

c1sc0• 16 years ago

Powerful? Scary? Great advertising you mean! The shared history between ad men & propaganda men is a very fascinating one. Effective advertising is like hacking the human psyche.

Ceno• 16 years ago

No, he actually means powerful and scary, in this kind of realization that we, our feelings, our inclinations, our rationality, our subconscious can be accessed and manipulated at will by 60 seconds of video.

Ever since I watched "the century of the self" I can't help but feeling utterly repulsed and violated by marketing in general. And watching the recent apple marketing, is like watching the master puppeteer at work

eli• 16 years ago

I've had video chat on my laptop for years, yet hardly ever use it. Further, if I'm near free WiFi, I'm usually near my laptop too. I suspect most people are the same way.

lwhi4• 16 years ago

Well, I'm sure Don Draper - the sociopathic lead from Mad Men - _could_ have created this advert. It bypasses the mundane nature of the technology, and shows the human benefit. It's sugar coated, and perhaps too schmaltzy for a UK audience, but I can see why it works.

Unfortunately - in keeping with the work of all sociopathic ad-men - reality has been distorted. This isn't real life, it's fantasy. For a start, a lot of the actors are 'holding it wrong'.

elai• 16 years ago

Spoliers

Draper isn't really sociopathic, you'd notice he's a lot more relaxed when he is with the original mrs.draper, and pretty much any sort of flashback sequence before his current job and marital situation. He is constantly living a lie and must put up a conscious pretense. He feels very guilty about what he done, and as a result he is constantly tense and always having few words and choosing them carefully.

lwhi4• 16 years ago

(... in your opinion.)

spoilers

Don Draper chooses to lie, he chooses to monopolize on his ability to deceive and he steadfastly places to his own whims above all others. He's manipulative and cunning. He believes he has the right to pay people off to get his own way. He's incredibly secretive - leading double (in some cases, triple lives). He has no true friendships and while he occasionally wrestles with morality, actually cares very little about the majority of those around him. The one person who is closest to a friend (Peggy) has been treated ridiculously badly at times. He fears virtually no situation and has a tendancy to act rashly. He enjoys and seeks out dangerous / risky situations.

Black and white can't be used to paint a full picture, and occasionally his character shows traits which describe another side to his personality. Even so, his character would certainly fit the standard definition of a sociopath / narcissist.

It just happens that the attributes Don Draper has been ascribed, also align with western society's view of 'the perfect man'; which is quite telling itself.

Down-voting based on a difference in opinion would be a little bit Draper-like ;)

amichail2• 16 years ago

A suggestion to solve the bandwidth and privacy issues for video chat: why not have an avatar whose facial expressions are determined from your facial expressions in real-time?

jacobolus• 16 years ago

There’s a bit of Dave Foster Wallace’s ''Infinite Jest'' that talks about precisely this, in considerably more detail, and quite amusingly.

Link: http://www.martin-brown.net/downloads/DavidFosterWallace-Inf...

robryan2• 16 years ago

What is the reason they're restricting this to wifi? Would the quality be to low on a 3g network? The only mobile video call I used probably over 5 years ago used a 3g(I assume, definitely not wifi) connection, sure the quality wasn't amazing, but would this still be an issue in built up areas?

jonursenbach• 16 years ago

AT&T is the reason.

robryan2• 16 years ago

I guess it's a software limitation at the moment. I doubt carriers in Australia would go down the same path given the choice.

axod3• 16 years ago

The commercial is well done (It pulls lots of heart strings for some people), but it's ridiculous to assume those are the main use cases. 90% use will be for remote sex. But knowing Apple they'll probably detect nude flesh and censor it ;)

The power of Apple's FaceTime commercial

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