Adland Swoons Over Apple's Big Announcements
If the ad industry was a fairy tale character, we're pretty sure it would be Snow White. Just one glimpse of a shiny, new Apple and it goes weak at the knees. This week's iPhone 6 announcement brought several potential game-changers to the table, from Apple Pay to Apple Watch. It will also give marketers and digital agencies the chance to get more involved with the iBeacon technology they've been playing with and getting excited about in recent months. So what's the verdict? Find out below...
Jeff Anulewicz, Executive Director, Strategy – MXM
Continuing their history of providing superior, even game-changing, consumer experience in their design, Apple’s announcement today of the next iPhone generation was paired with long-awaited news on Apple Watch and Apple Pay. The bigger, thinner, faster, more powerful iPhone 6 - and its answer to Samsung’s Galaxy S5, the iPhone 6 Plus - was met with the typical fervour of a newly released Apple product. With a curved display, a '2-up' landscape view, the repositioning of the sleep button, advanced wireless features and predictive keyboard (as part of the iOS 8 release), Apple has focused on making the larger device easier and more intuitive to use, and more importantly: use single-handedly.
The good news for brands is that apps developed to an iOS 7 standard will automatically adapt to the new format, avoiding the need for costly updates, particularly as we get ready to move into the holiday shopping season. For consumers they get the greater flexibility and empowered usability, with fewer steps - or swipes, as it were.
Truly, however, the crescendo of the announcement came with the details behind Apple Watch and Apple Pay. The Apple Watch, available early next year, is designed to work seamlessly with both the newly announced iPhone 6 as well as retroactively with all iPhone 5 models. Given the small screen, greater emphasis will be placed on gestures in order to interact with both the device and those to whom you are connecting. It plays into today’s hyper-connected consumer’s expectation to be empowered through simple, easy-to-use interfaces. Finally, Apple Pay represents a return to Apple’s history of market disruption. By partnering with American Express, Visa and MasterCard, along with over 200,000 retail partners, Apple Pay is positioned to finally deliver on the promise of a true mobile wallet and daily mobile commerce. Taking cues from existing alternative payment options, such as Amazon Payments or PayPal, and fuelled by the NFC-enabled iPhone 6 and Apple Watch, Apple Pay will provide the ability for 'one-touch purchase' in a real world setting. By hiding credit card account numbers and generating a one-time only code to be used by merchants in order to complete a transaction, they overcome the largest barrier to mobile commerce adoption: security of consumer payment information.
Beyond sapphire displays, faster chipsets, increased battery life, or size, Apple Pay has the greatest potential of everything revealed today to fundamentally change the way consumers use their mobile devices.
Jordan Gray, Manager, Creative Labs - Organic
These days new smartphone hardware needs to be transformational in some way, not just more or faster. Features like wireless charging to clear up cord clutter are more exciting than higher resolution displays and faster processors. With this in mind, I thought that the iPhone 6 announcements yesterday were interesting for several reasons. The first being the display size - the iPhone 6 Plus with its 5.5" screen is a monster. While variety is the spice of life, I'm not sure that the 'phablet' will ever be shaking its awkward underdog roots. One upside to the larger device is that the iPhone 6 Plus touts a landscape mode with side-by-side multi-tasking. It's a feature I enjoyed on the Note3 – but it wasn't enough of a selling point to keep me on the phablet train. The 4.7" display on the iPhone 6 feels about right and it won't feel like a miniature toy after handling larger Android phones the same way the iPhone 5 did.
Some of the most exciting things about yesterday's announcement include: the Optical Image Stabilisation (it’s too bad that it’s only a feature of the iPhone 6 Plus and not the iPhone 6) and Apple Pay, which is an entirely new system combining NFC with Touch ID and secure Element. NFC payments have been around for a while (supported by Android, popular in Europe) but Apple backing the tech could drive adoption of NFC payments in America. Eddy Cue was quick to point out that Apple is tracking what you've bought and the cashier doesn't even see your name, making it more private than credit cards. Health Kit is also exciting with iWatch integration, but even a standalone iPhone 5 will collect better health metrics than previous generations with a new M8 motion sensor that adds elevation via a barometer.
The new iOS8 also has two new exciting features - Manual Camera Tools and Document Picker. As an artist, I’m more interested in using iOS for content creation than consumption and these two new features will enhance the content creation process. Manual camera controls, including focus which will make macro and dramatic depth-of-field pictures easier to capture. Document Picker is another leap forward for content creators allowing for inter-app workflows. It means I can start editing a picture or song in one application and continue with another. This builds on the iOS7 feature of inter-app-audio that allowed audio streaming between applications, but now workflows with multiple applications isn't limited to audio and doesn't have to be in real-time.
Playing catch up with Android, iOS8 also has two features everyone can enjoy: custom keyboards, which means swype, flecksy and custom emoji will have users expressing themselves faster than ever. And app extensions, which are a parallel to Android's intents and will allow iOS8 users to specify which application they want to use when editing a photo or sharing an article.
James Hart, Strategy Director - Carat
"The issue Apple is facing is one of loyalty, where its use of technology and innovation is increasingly creating a reliance on its ever expanding eco-system, rather than a genuine desire of its customers to create, connect and consume its products like it used to. The reason for this? A conscious decision by the brand to move into incremental forms of innovation, rather than the disruptive ones it’s famous for.
"There is a possibility it has reached a loyalty ceiling with its consumers. Given the vertically integrated monopoly Apple now has over its customers, the brand’s genuine and commercially enviable 'consumer love' is beginning to be replaced by a modern form of 'slavery' where habit and necessity could start replacing devotion and self-motivation.
"People are also very keen to talk about how Apple is going to “win the battle for ownership” of the mobile payment market. Well, it won’t. The game isn’t there to be won by the manufacturers (and if it was it would be Android who would take the crown – its position is far stronger due to share of smartphone market).
"It’s down to the businesses – the retailers and the banks for example – working together to change consumer behaviour (interesting for Apple as they are not classically known for collaborating). The appetite for this sort of technology isn’t there so there needs to be a category-wide push to create this and ensure everywhere is NFC enabled and offers Tap to Pay.
"The issue seems to be that of late the technology Apple are investing behind, such as NFC, is doomed to fail because it requires mainstream consumer behaviour change and a decisive move towards the mass middle. For instance did we really expect to hear the brands McDonalds, Disney & Apple in the same sentence 10 years ago?
"The iWatch’s big opportunity is to be sensory addition to our lives but at the moment it is not doing this. It’s attached to your arm, not connected to it. There is a land-grab for screens, but they may have missed the opportunity to be something more than just another screen."
Bill Fleig, VP, Client Services - JUXT
As digital and experiential marketers, the feature with possibly the most potential in Apple's new iPhone 6 is the inclusion of Near Field Communication capabilities (NFC). While other manufacturers and platforms already have devices that are NFC-capable, its adoption by Apple will launch an exponential increase in its prominence and acceptance. Coupled with location-based geo-marketing using iBeacons, NFC will enable marketers to create experiences that are seamless across devices and platforms, while enabling consumers to connect with each other more easily. Brands and marketers will have opportunities to create even more frictionless campaigns that link brand identity, awareness and products to consumers and payments. Geo-marketing data will be used to identify markets while geo-marketing technologies such as iBeacons will work in tandem with NFC to offer enhanced brand experiences through traditional means of offers and coupons, as well as developing social, multi-device and increasingly innovative campaigns.
For marketers, this will also drive the need to innovate new ways of incorporating these technologies to strengthen brands, while working to create new paradigms and navigating through uncharted technological territory and developing industry-wide best practice methodologies and techniques. And consumers will have more integrated relationships with brands through multi-device connections, targeted advertising based on geography and location, easier sharing of data through tap-to-connect features and seamlessly integrated proximity payment and ticketing systems. Gaining consumer trust, awe and buy-in on-demand will be the name of the game.
Shane Diver, Executive Creative Director - JUXT
Apple is finally folding to the pressure to increase the screen size of its iPhone. The competition has been here for quite some time. And while the competition surely played a role in this decision, the consumer's appetite for viewing video on a phone has surely pushed them over the edge. Apple has just poured gasoline on the mobile video advertising fire.
Eric Johnson, Founder and President - Ignited
Apple continues to be a leader. They have again set the bar for the competitive set. While others have released wearables and watch-like applications before, none of them will get close to the buzz that comes from the Apple Watch. Because the Apple ecosystem is so strong, they immediately have an audience who are ready to leverage the music from their iTunes account on the new devices. The physical fitness monitoring functionality immediately casts a shadow over FitBit, Nike Plus and other competitors.
The announcement of the payment program may have the biggest impact on the industry, as they attempt to simplify digital payments. Many others have made progress here, but the heft of Apple getting in this space will accelerate adoption of this payment behaviour.
Dan Roche, VP of Marketing - TalkPoint
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are both exciting upgrades to the Apple line. I think this is the first model since the iPhone 4 that really throws down features that people care about. However, the iPhone 6 Plus is the real story here. I think with the Plus, Apple is able to hedge against a lot of deserters that were leaving strictly based on size. We are definitely reaching a point, with the setting changes in the 4 and the size change in the Plus, where the final decision is going to be over OS or some very specific feature between Apple and its competitors. I think it's both smart and the natural order for advanced technologies like these. Eventually, the best of both worlds merge on some level, and we as consumers end up the big winners.
Nishat Mehta, EVP of Global Partnership - dunnhumby
"While others will focus on the chances the “one more thing” products, Apple Pay and Apple Watch, are wildly successful, I was excited, instead, to see that the customer’s voice has been heard loud-and-clear in the way Apple is going to deliver these products. First, with Apple Pay, Apple publicly stated that they plan not to collect any data as part of this service and will avoid sharing the raw credit card information with the retailer (exactly what had enabled the breaches that have recently hit prominent retailers). Second, with Apple Watch, while they have built sensors to collect all sorts of health and fitness data, their recent update to the privacy policy indicates that this data will not be available for sale to advertisers. These statements support the idea of a company doing what it can to ensure data can be collected for the customer’s benefit, while still guaranteeing their choice, control and preference.
