Goutham's Thoughts

Apple’s iPod ads December 9, 2006

Recently there was a question on my marketing take home exam about Apple’s new iPod ad where the product name was not mentioned and if it was a good idea.

These ads by Apple were very impressive and campaign was very successful. These kinds of ads do work, but only in situations when large enough critical mass of people know about the product, and the ad image been “branded” into the consciousness of consumers. These ads are built on top of prior similar successful campaigns, (in which the brand and product are mentioned ) which created  the brand image for the product.

This specific campaign where the names were not mentioned was started by Apple on the back of a very successful “iPod Silhouettes” campaign, which helped build iPod a brand recognition of a cool device, that every music lover could use.

At this point after the extremely successful launch of the product, it was not important anymore to mention the product or company name, but s sufficient to just evoke the feelings about the product in the minds of consumers and this was possible without even mentioning the name of the product in the ad.

Also for the folks who fail to comprehend the product from the ads   it creates a kind of curiosity in their minds about what the ad is all about and helps create a mystique image around the product once they figure out what it is.