Apple's new 'FaceTime Every Day' ad continues powerful iPhone campaign
Continuing its series of TV commercials that imbue a relaxed, contemplative feel, Apple on Monday released a new ad focusing on the broad range of emotions that can be captured by an iPhone 5 running FaceTime.
Like Apple's most recent ads, "FaceTime Every Day" stitches together slices of life from multiple iPhone owners, showcasing how they use the video calling protocol to convey a spectrum of emotions without saying a word.
While not as jarringly serene as Apple's "Music Every Day" spot, the company's latest iPhone 5 ad effectively relays a clear message without using gimmicks, loud music or over-the-top visuals.
The iPhone 5 is almost transparent in the ad as such a strong emphasis is put on FaceTime, rather than the device running it. The audience is given passing glances at what users are seeing in a few over-the-shoulder shots, but the most effective are those that don't show the screen at all, when the audience is forced to see facial expressions lit by the iPhone screen's glow.
Simplicity is the hallmark of these new commercials, but with "FaceTime," Apple included actors' voices in almost every scene over a lilting piano track. The talking is mostly used as a tool to underscore the video chatting taking place, not to necessarily advertise FaceTime's audio capabilities. Indeed, a few of the clips are spoken in foreign tongues and the cuts jump in and out of calls mid-conversation, while in others all that can be heard is laughter.
The silent snippets punctuate the power of visual communication. When the audience sees a user smiling, frowning, laughing, or kissing the air, they understand that FaceTime is made to convey the unspoken.
Impressive in its simple clarity, Apple's commercial effectively paints FaceTime as more than talking at an iPhone, it is a way of expressing feelings that are otherwise difficult or impossible to communicate.
Apple slips in some usage scenarios, like low-light capabilities in the fireworks scene and access to the rear-facing camera in others. Some shots point out the teleconference-like abilities of FaceTime, where multiple people can gather around an iPhone for a group talk. For the most part, however, the ad concentrates on one-on-one communication.
The ad ends with a narrator saying, "Everyday, more people connect face-to-face on the iPhone than any other phone."
Like Apple's most recent ads, "FaceTime Every Day" stitches together slices of life from multiple iPhone owners, showcasing how they use the video calling protocol to convey a spectrum of emotions without saying a word.
While not as jarringly serene as Apple's "Music Every Day" spot, the company's latest iPhone 5 ad effectively relays a clear message without using gimmicks, loud music or over-the-top visuals.
The iPhone 5 is almost transparent in the ad as such a strong emphasis is put on FaceTime, rather than the device running it. The audience is given passing glances at what users are seeing in a few over-the-shoulder shots, but the most effective are those that don't show the screen at all, when the audience is forced to see facial expressions lit by the iPhone screen's glow.
Simplicity is the hallmark of these new commercials, but with "FaceTime," Apple included actors' voices in almost every scene over a lilting piano track. The talking is mostly used as a tool to underscore the video chatting taking place, not to necessarily advertise FaceTime's audio capabilities. Indeed, a few of the clips are spoken in foreign tongues and the cuts jump in and out of calls mid-conversation, while in others all that can be heard is laughter.
The silent snippets punctuate the power of visual communication. When the audience sees a user smiling, frowning, laughing, or kissing the air, they understand that FaceTime is made to convey the unspoken.
Impressive in its simple clarity, Apple's commercial effectively paints FaceTime as more than talking at an iPhone, it is a way of expressing feelings that are otherwise difficult or impossible to communicate.
Apple slips in some usage scenarios, like low-light capabilities in the fireworks scene and access to the rear-facing camera in others. Some shots point out the teleconference-like abilities of FaceTime, where multiple people can gather around an iPhone for a group talk. For the most part, however, the ad concentrates on one-on-one communication.
The ad ends with a narrator saying, "Everyday, more people connect face-to-face on the iPhone than any other phone."
Comments
FaceTime and iMessages both need more platform agnosticism, and the latter also needs to stop arbitrarily reordering messages and making sure they're not delayed 24 hours. There isn't a lot of advantage, if any at all, to using these services when Skype and WatsApp are available as platform-agnostic alternatives.
Won't you need to find someone with a Nokia phone as well¿
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZachLach
I am just waiting for them to make and AD that says "More people use Siri on their iPhones than any other phone"
It will come out together with ad: "More companies are copying iPhone than any other phone"
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
Won't you need to find someone with a Nokia phone as well¿
Found already! My boss is die hard Windows lover, whatever that means. He is the only user of our web mobile application...
I heard about this ad yesterday, and so went onto Apple's site to look for it. I never found it (?)
Edit: It's there now.
You need to refresh their homepage
http://www.apple.com/iphone/videos/#tv-ads-facetime-every-day
Why? Skype will work across multiple device types
"Everyday, more people connect face-to-face on the iPhone than any other phone."
It would be cool to get stats on that - e.g. FaceTime usage v. Skype.
The ad is nice, but I still feel that video chat is a very awkward thing.
I think they need to improve FaceTime. It was good to have 1-1 a few years ago but I think it is time to improve it and move to video conferencing as well. although perhaps this omission is intentional for simplicity.
For every version of the iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch hardware, of iOS and OSX, different considerations apply (for the user to find out !!!).
Why not merge those applications and let them determine for themselves (yes, that's what computers are for), on the basis of the 2 connecting devices, which connection modes are supported: texting, sound, video.
I am a power user, but these days, I don't know what to advise iOS/OSX users, on how to configure their systems best to have the best possibleiChat/Messages/FaceTime experience.
Complicated !
Ive ? -- anyone ?
Yeah good luck with the 'quality' of that video call.
I signed up just to post this message.....
Skype = NSA recording your audio and video
FaceTime & iMessage = END TO END ENCRYPTION, Apple (or anyone else) cant store or intercept ANYTHING.
If Apple were to turn FaceTime into a buddy list app and merge iMessage into it, I believe MILLIONS of Skype users would switch to FaceTime.
Apple has a real opportunity here but I doubt they will take it.
Unfortunately, I RELY on Skype for biz. Apple has the power to change this.
To really put this over the top, make FaceTime available as PC app. (never happen)
One more thing.
I used to have lots of iChat correspondents.
Today I hardly have a few.
Every time these people go through a new iOS/OSX/hardware upgrade, something changes, and a lot of iChat users are lost in the process.
They used to text, audiochat, videochat, but nowadays they use Skype, or turned back to using the phone.
Granted, there previously was no integration with SMS messageing, but at least Apple users could communicate amongst each other no matter what their (Apple) platform was.
Apple should also better inform users as to what the RECOMMENDED configurations are for the iCloud, not just what is possible.
There is a great difference between people who are almost automatically configured by an assistant, when they first buy an Apple device, and those who need to adapt from one software/hardware version to another.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
... it would be cool to see FaceTime available for Windows and Android.
I agree, and Apple promised that's what they would do when they launched FaceTime. But I don't see it coming anytime soon especially if, for example, they release the new iPhone 5C as a phone that accesses Cloud services (without traditional cellular functionality) - if that happens they'd have no reason to launch those apps on other platforms, they'd keep them Apple-only in order to lure people to Apple's products so they could chat with their FaceTime/iMessage friends and family.