Physical Attractiveness in Apple’s Marketing

Physical attractiveness

As using attractive people in advertising is more a rule than an exception, it comes to no surprise that also Apple utilises attractive people in its advertisements.

The use of physical attractiveness reaches to other areas of the company’s communication as well. It can be argued that Apple’s product, website, packaging and store designs all contribute to the persuasiveness of Apple’s marketing message by lending more credibility to the persuasion efforts. Surely you would be more convinced of a product’s excellence if it looked like a piece of art rather than a heap of garbage?

Apple is notorious for their attention to the tiniest of details and ensuring that the sleek and aesthetically-beautiful Apple experience is communicated through at every consumer touch point. So well has this concentration on appearance worked for Apple that there are, for example, a plethora of Apple product unboxing videos on YouTube for those who salivate over attractive packaging.

Similarity

People are more pre-disposed to trust and like a person who is perceived as similar to them. The feeling of similarity can arise, for instance, from shared interests, personality, background, opinions and so forth, and it is a strong contributor to how inclined we are to like and be persuaded by someone.

Similarity in Apple’s Marketing

The persuasion principle of similarity has perhaps been the biggest contributor to Apple’s marketing success in the past. Starting all the way in 1984 with the much-applauded Orwell-esque Macintosh Super Bowl advertisement, and culminating in the famous ‘Think Different’ campaign that launched in 1997, Apple has always positioned its brand strongly as the underdog, the supporter of originality and combater of conformity.

Rather than competing on technical specifications with PCs, Apple strove to make Macs a lifestyle choice instead. The company wanted to establish an almost black-and-white setting of PCs versus Macs, which proved to be so successful for the company that this mindset is still evident in people’s thinking, although the campaign has not run since 2009.

Creatives, such as designers and artists, most likely appreciated and identified with Apple’s ‘Think Different’ advertisements from 1997 that featured prominent celebrities from the past, such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart and Pablo Picasso. The notion of similarity was played with strongly in this branding campaign.

Apple took it even further in its ‘Get a Mac’ campaigns that started in 2006. The famous advertisements showed a laidback and casual actor Justin Long embodying the essence of Macs and interacting with his seeming opposite, the PC, who was portrayed by author John Hodgman.

This human embodiment of a PC was portrayed as dull, stiff and pestered with malfunctions, whereas the Mac was shown as easygoing, simple and friendly. The play on the principle of similarity could have not been any more obvious, with Apple’s intention being that viewers would identify with the casual charm of the Mac and stay away from the seemingly complex bundle of problems that was the PC.

It has been reported that these particular advertisements were so effective that sales soared after the launch of the campaign. Clearly Apple had finally perfected the art of appealing to consumers’ sense of similarity and was able to reap the rewards.

Macs are still very much the computer of choice for creatives, and Apple knows this. When navigating to the Mac section of the company’s online store, the pages feature several pieces of original artwork on the computer displays, citing the artists’ names. The recommended applications showcased on the page are also heavily geared towards creative professionals, which contributes to the image that Macs are the optimal computers for anyone working in the creative industry.

Conditioning and Association

The use of conditioning and association persuasion principles in promotional communication is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but hey they work. The widespread popularity of this persuasion technique is based on the fact that people have a stronger preference for things and ideas that are connected to things that they already like.

In other words, people tend to associate one person’s or item’s positive qualities with a product that appears in the same context. The positive image of one thing practically rubs off on to the other.

This is yet another reason why classic forms of advertising employ attractive models in their advertisements and why brands are so keen to invest in sponsorship or engaging in product placement. The connection between the brand or a product and the liked object or person does not even have to be logical. The only thing that matters in this instance is that the connection is a positive one.

Conditioning and Association in Apple’s Marketing

Apple has spent a lot of time and effort in aligning its brand and products with just the right objects. Although changing, Apple is still regarded as the hipper alternative to the ‘stiff’ technology companies, and this is a direct result of clever choices in celebrity endorsements, advertisement messages and product placements.

The most obvious example of the principles of conditioning and association in play was Apple’s Mac vs. PC advertisements. In this case, Apple did not bother with the traditional approach of celebrities endorsing or presenting the promoted product, but combined these into one, effectively making the endorser the endorsed.

This is not often witnessed in advertising, but perhaps the unconventional take on this classic persuasion technique made this particular advertising campaign one of the more successful ones for Apple.

Apple’s ‘Think Different’ branding campaigns also sought to align the Apple brand with the original and creative image of certain celebrities. This campaign was actually the first step in a series of many in Apple’s journey to differentiate the company from Microsoft in a very blatant way.

When it comes to building the company image with the help of celebrity endorsements, big stars, such as Samuel L. Jackson, Zoey Deschanel and Oprah Winfrey have all lent their star power to Apple. In addition, Apple invests heavily on TV show and film product placements. The company has had many Apple products appear on screen alongside the main stars in TV shows and films such as Sex and the City, The Office and Mission: Impossible, just to name a few. In fact, Apple was the leader in the number of product placements in 2014.

Despite the heavy young-skew in Apple’s product placements and celebrity endorsements, it is interesting to note, however, that over 46 % of Apple’s user base is currently 55 years of age or older. Time will tell how Apple will respond to these figures in its promotional activities.