Marketing in the news: Bruce and The Roo

I picked this article because my entire family has Apple products. My youngest son is obsessed with his Apple watch. When I watched the promotional video, I instantly loved it.

The article shares the story of Bruce Mildenhall riding his bicycle, he had an accident with a kangaroo and was unconscious. The watch detected the accident, called emergency services, and dispatched them to his location. Then the watch notified his wife. Bruce is thankful that he was wearing the device. The video ends with Bruce joking with the comment, “I still wear my Apple watch every time I hop on my bike. And I keep my eye out for a kangaroo with tire marks.”

Apple Watch has launched two recent videos of true stories where the product has saved the wearer’s life. It is choosing to highlight features of the product, such as monitoring vitals and crash detection. Apple is emphasizing how these features can be used; as well as why they are important. This has been an ongoing trend of Apple Watch to highlight and promote these livesaving features. This shows a noticeably clear picture of their value proposition. Regarding marketing relevance, the article also listed other commercials and promotions that Apple has released over the last two years that displayed other ways that the device could save lives. This shows a sales strategy; they are attempting to ensure that the product still has an appeal and that they are continually highlighting new ways to use the existing features. It is a creative way to be new and noticeable.

According to CNN Business, apple is concerned with revenue. Therefore, it can be assumed that these promotions and sales strategies could be a way to overcome that challenge. Also, according to the CNN business article, apple is being affected by patent battles. Other companies such as Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Samsung have all rolled out generative AI features to their services, computers, and smartphones. However, Apple has been quiet on the topic. Apple could be using this type of marketing to have customers focus on the life-saving abilities instead of AI features. It is a clever way to empathize “life-saving” abilities.

This is a very smart marketing example. The idea of saving your life sits high on the importance scale. It is a unique promotion because of this. Ending the commercial with the person saying that is why they will always wear the product and making the audience laugh allows it to be relateable to the audience. Adding the playful joke of him looking for the kangaroo with tire marks makes it more memorable for the audience. It makes the commercial more memorable. This is an exceptionally effective way to promote a product.

What would I do differently? It is difficult to think of something to do differently because I really loved this example. I think that it was something important that they highlighted, I like that it is a true story, I like that it is relatable, I like that it had humor and was memorable, I liked that it was very clear to understand how the feature on the device helped and what exactly it did, and overall it was a very good commercial. I do have two minor critiques that I would do differently, I like that they used the person’s real voice, however, his accent does make the beginning a little difficult to understand. If he slowed down for the first sentence it would be easier to understand. He does speak slower and more annunciated for the remainder of the commercial. Also, the commercial lists the name of the feature at the end and the Apple logo, but I would have chosen to place it in the front right before they display “this is a true story” as well as at the end. I think the sandwiching before and after would make it stick that it was promoting this specific feature and this product.