Beyond the Screen: How Apple Uses Analytics to Shape the Future?

Apple Inc. is a globally recognized brand known for its innovative technology products. I guarantee that anyone who reads my post will certainly know about its products. So, how does Apple utilize digital media and digital media metrics and analytics?

In today’s digital age, businesses and individuals alike are immersed in a vast and dynamic digital landscape. From websites and social media platforms to mobile applications and online advertisements, digital media has transformed the way consumers communicate, consume information, and engage with content. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at how Apple harnesses the power of digital media and analytics to engage audiences, drive sales, and maintain its position as a global tech giant.

Apple Inc. approaches audiences through different digital media channels, including its e-commerce website, social media presence, mobile application, and email marketing. To start with, the most common way to sell its products is through an e-commerce website, which serves as the cornerstone for providing customers with a seamless shopping experience for a wide range of products, including iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and accessories. The website features a sleek design, intuitive navigation, and detailed product descriptions, allowing users to explore and purchase products with ease. Secondly, Apple maintains a strong presence on major social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter (X), YouTube, and Facebook. Through captivating visuals, engaging videos, and strategic messaging, Apple leverages social media to connect with millions of followers worldwide in order to share product announcements and showcase the brand’s commitment to innovation and creativity. Thirdly, the Apple Store mobile application, which was installed in all its products, offers users a personalized shopping experience on their mobile devices, allowing them to browse the products, make purchases, and access exclusive content seamlessly. Besides, features such as Apple Pay integration, in-store pickups, and Genius Bar appointments enhance convenience and accessibility for its customers. Lastly, Apple utilizes email marketing to communicate with its vast customer base and deliver targeted promotions, product updates, and event invitations. By leveraging data-driven segmentation and dynamic content, Apple delivers personalized email campaigns that resonate with recipients and drive engagement and conversions. 

In addition to its robust digital media presence, Apple Inc. employs sophisticated digital metrics and analytics to optimize its online strategies and enhance customer engagement. By harnessing the power of data-driven insights, Apple has gained valuable intelligence into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends across its digital channels. 

Through advanced analytics tools and algorithms, Apple meticulously tracks and analyzes key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of its digital initiatives. For instance, Apple closely monitors website traffic metrics such as the number of visitors, page views, and conversion rate on its e-commerce platform in terms of how users navigate the website and interact with product listings; they can refine the user experience and streamline the path to purchase. In the vein of mobile app performance, they track metrics including downloads, active users, and in-app purchases to evaluate the effectiveness of its mobile applications so that Apple can identify areas for improvement and enhance the overall app experience to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Similarly, by monitoring social media engagement metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and follower growth rate, the company can gauge the effectiveness of its social media strategy. Apple refines its content strategy to foster community engagement and brand advice by analyzing audience demographics and engagement trends. 

One of the most successful social media campaigns is Apple’s “Shot on iPhone Campaign.” Apple Inc. launched a campaign to showcase the stunning photography capabilities of its iPhone devices and to engage users. The campaign encouraged iPhone users to share their best photos taken with their iPhones on social media using the hashtag #ShotoniPhone. As a result, its campaign sparked widespread participation and engagement on carouse social media platforms, which generated a sense of community and camaraderie among iPhone users, fostering brand loyalty and advocacy. The user-generated content shared as part of the campaign received overwhelming positive feedback from followers and fans, with many expressing admiration for the creativity and talent. It can be shown that Apple effectively leveraged social proof to showcase the value and impact of its products, ultimately strengthening its brand position and market leadership in the competitive smartphone industry. 

Overall, Apple’s mastery of digital metrics and analytics enables the company to make data-driven decisions, optimize its digital marketing strategies, and deliver exceptional experiences to customers worldwide. Through continuous analysis and refinement, they remain at the forefront of digital innovation, setting the standard for excellence in the digital landscape.

Experience of the product – Advertisement philosophy of ‘Apple’ (제품을 통한 경험 – 애플의 광고 철학)

Numerous companies and organizations are conducting ‘advertisement’. The main purpose of advertisement is – to sell their products. For this reason, companies are highlighting the advantages of their products to attract more consumers.

Some companies are appealing their technology. Some companies are emphasizing history. Some companies are relying on the emotional appeals. ‘Apple’ which is well known American multinational technology company, delivers ‘company philosophy’ through advertisement.

This is the company advertisement made by Apple in the year of 2013. Through this advertisement, Apple tries to focus on highlighting company’s own philosophy which is “experience”. Before 2013, Apple published several TV advertisement emphasizing digital technology of their own products. However, Started from this advertisement, Apple started making advertisement to inform their philosophy not the technology itself to public.

Attached commercial describes the people’s lives which are closely related to the products developed by Apple. A woman listening to music through i-pod, Asian children getting education by I-pad, couples taking selfie by using i-phone, musician using Mac-book, and a man video calling to his wife to show exotic food appear in this commercial. Through narration, the commercial highlights that the ‘important thing is – experience’ which is close to the business philosophy of Apple.

This is printed advertisement which is also published by Apple in 2013. This commercial also emphasizes that the company matters the experience derived by the products. These advertisements are not outlive celebrities, or the innovative technologies the company developed. Rather than, Apple only focuses on the ‘philosophy’ they maintained.

Started from the year of 2013, Apple has been publishing commercial containing their business philosophy, ‘experience’ continuously. Due to this consistency and stability, Apple has formed brand identity among public which became the main power and competitiveness within the digital marketing field.

There is another popular commercial which contained values of ‘experience’ that Apple can offer to users. This is TV advertisement conducted by Apple in the year of 2014. Especially this campaign was meaningful for being a cornerstone of Apple’s advertisement history. There are two points that we need to consider.

First, the commercial is focusing on the experience of users rather than the product and technology itself so that public can concentrate on the individual stories. Second, it also delivers the values and philosophy which can be provided to the target audience. By capturing a few of the moments that people use I-pad every day, the advertisement tries to inspire the potential users and make actual stakeholders satisfy with the products and brand itself.

However, this is not the only theme for Apple’s advertisement. To make a variation, Apple also publish advertisement with emphasis on personal ‘experience’ and ‘business value’ through seasonal commercial. Christmas, is the perfect season to highlight the shared values and experience among the users.

 

 

Two commercial above, published in 2015 and 2013 individually, contain the value of ‘experiencing’ through Apple’s products. Along with the seasonal atmosphere, the commercials are emphasizing ‘family’ at the same time. Relying on the emotional appeal, Apple do not miss implying the business philosophy. Both of these Christmas commercials are delivering value of love, share, and empathy based on the common experience based on the products provided by Apple.

Apples’ commercial is considered as one of the most influential, memorable, meaningful, and inspiring ones in the field. I think this power and brand identity comes from the consistent message which delivers business philosophy.

References

Allsundae (2013, 07, 01). 애플 – 우리의 서명 [비디오] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOOgID1TPSM

Apple fan (2014, 01, 14). Apple – Ipad Air – TV Ad – Your Verse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlBomhIWi3c&list=PLv59apXhSInpzfuMnKXlqyqY_lg1AwFXT&nohtml5=False

Be creative lab (2013, 07, 04). 중요한 건 제품이 주는 경험 http://becreativelab.com/archives/155900

Silvesnow (2013, 12, 17). Apple iPhone Christmas Commercial 2013 .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v76f6KPSJ2w&nohtml5=False

StevieWonderVEVO (2015, 12, 21). Stevie Wonder, Andra Day –Someday At Christmas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUJ8Yp3EDBI

Cookie Monster and Siri

Like every year Apple announces another iPhone at the end of the year. Last year it was the iPhone 6s its turn. They also released the bigger brother of the iPhone 6s called the iPhone 6s Plus. And like the previous generations, the lovely voice of Siri is still there. The only difference is that Siri, Apple’s voice assistance, which you can use hands-free since IOS 8, is now also available hands-free without having to charge the phone. To make people aware of this new function Apple invited our blue furry friend Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. I think they did a good job with this, because it doesn’t matter how old you are, you’ll always have a weak spot for the characters from Sesame Street. And besides that Cookie Monster is one of the favorite character’s word wide, for both adults and children. Apple is also fan from the blue, cookie addicted monster and decided to let him cooperate with Siri in their new campaign. In the video that Apple posted on their official YouTube channel you can see how Cookie Monster can’t wait to eat his homemade cookies. And before I’ll tell you how this hilarious advertisement ends I’ll (very) strongly recommend you to first watch the video below.

[1]

If you enjoyed watching this video, you might also be interested in the video Apple brought out recently which shows some funny parts behind the scene.

[2]

In the official campaign video Cookie Monster decides to make some cookies. Probably because of the fact he’s always hungry and his main dish is cookies. To bake some perfect cookies Cookie Monster puts the cookies excited in the oven and tells Siri to set the timer at 14 minutes. After almost a second Cookie Monster already asks Siri desperately to play a waiting playlist. After the waiting playlist starts, with Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle”, it’s very obvious that the hungry Cookie Monster starts to get bored. Especially when he starts to play with his oven gloves like they’re puppets and even tries to eat his own wooden spoon. The video behind the screens is also really cute and funny. These two aspects are also the key factors that make this advertisement so strong. In the basics it’s emotional marketing at its best. By retrieving happy childhood moments for millions of people and bring a smile to their face with this humorous tableau. And it aims to sell stuff too.[3] This seems to work, because the Apple Cookie Monster advertisement became the most-shared advertisement for the second week running with 109,233 shares that week. This was even more than twice as much shares as the number two advertisement that week.[4] And with more than 9,5 million YouTube views it can be said that this advertisement was a big success for Apple.

 

[1] Apple (2016). iPhone 6s – Timer. Accessed at April 16 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/

[2] Apple (2016). iPhone 6s – Timer – Behind The Scenes. Accessed at April 16 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/

[3] Koene, J. (2016). Emotional SEO: Finding your online Cookie Monster. Accessed at April 17 2016, from http://blog.searchmetrics.com/

[4] Degun, G. (2016). Campaign Viral Chart: Apple’s Cookie Monster ad holds on to top spot. Accessed at April 17 2016, from http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/