Will Tinder Lead to a New Digital Advertising Era

Do you remember Bud Light “Up for whatever” last year? It invited 1,000 millennials to have a party in Bud Light town for a weekend, and the campaign was a big success reaching to its target audience aged from 21 to 27 years old. This year on April, Bud Light launched the same campaign again, but used a different media channel to promote its advertisement, which is Tinder. The two brands worked together for about six months to create the campaign exclusively designed for Tinder platform. The “whatever USA” campaign is only viewable by Tinder users who are 21 and older, and appears between swipes on this popular dating app.

Tinder users will be asked to swipe out of the video with the action for left swipes (pass) and right swipes (like). The actions will be recorded by Tinder, and the data will also help Bud Light to determine its target audience attitudes about the campaign. If a user swipes right and likes the video, the button on the top corner of the video will show up and the user can click it and enter into #UpForWhatever contest. When the user enter into the contest, she or he can perform favorite song in a Bud Light event, or swap sunglasses with someone, and then share a photo or video on her or his social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

The Bud Light new campaign first combined a new appeared digital channel-Tinder with other ones together to increase the accuracy of targeting and promotion, and also to increase users’ experience. Tinder’s advertisement is a more straightforward way to know users response, with “like” and “pass”, and give that data back to collaborated brands such as Bud Light.

Tinder also used different lengths of video to test the waters, to see which length is most preferred by its users and how its users react to this advertising format. By this way, Tinder can make a good balance between users’ experience and exposures of the advertisement.

It only makes sense that Tinder and Bud Light would be a match, not only for their target audience, but also for brands themselves. It is because Bud Light is associated with off-the-cuff parties, and Tinder is a mobile platform where strangers meet with each other in off-the-cuff situations. When users meet their right ones on Tinder, Bud Light give them the opportunity to take the action going to #UpForWhatever party together.

Tinder is a great platform to partner with brands to communicate cool offerings to users, and to deliver the brands’ messages in a very accurate way. With Tinder, brands can easily connect with millennials and know their feedbacks of the advertisement.

In the future, there must be more and more collaborations between brands and mobile apps, and campaigns exclusively designed for specific apps. Creativity and innovation in the message delivering process will also be the key successful factor for brands to reach to their target audience.

Is selling Apple gold watch edition a good strategy

Apart from telling the time, like all traditional watches do, the Apple Watch can pick up phone calls, send texts, play games, record health data, and remind about all kinds of things. You can also use it pay for supermarkets or malls, and open hotel doors. For women, you can use it to keep track of your dietary habit to keep your weight. For sports enthusiasts, you can use it to track of exercise habits and build a dashboard to measure your exercise effects.

The Apple Watch has many similarities with other Apple devices such as apps, ISO system, and functions. But there is one thing quite different. Apple unveiled gold watch for more than $10,000. Unlike other Apple devices, which can be accepted by masses, Apple gold watch is a kind of luxury product for rich people and loyal Apple fans. But will it work for these two groups of people? I quite doubt it.

For those rich people in the world, let’s think about what they value most when they buy watches. Resale vaule? Legacy? Appearance? Or all of them.

Compared to Rolex and Omega, it is more difficult for Apple watch to hold on its value after 10 years or longer because it is more frequent for smart-watch to upgrade. Give your children a Rolex watch today, and it may has more value 20 years later because of its classic design or vintage. But if you leave your children an Apple watch today, it will become an out of date electronic trash. Watch valuations are not just about technology, but also about how watches are constructed, how prestigious the brand is, and how good and classic they look. It’s hard for Apple Watch to reach to all these valuations that rich people treat most important.

Although Apple is the most respected and successful company today, its legacy cannot compete with those legendary Swiss watchmaking companies. You may say that Apple Watch is a smart-watch and does not have too much overlap with these Swiss watches. But its gold watch edition push it into the industry to compete with luxury watch brands. Though Apple is trying to leverage its reputation as a high-end technology company to sell the luxury watch, it is not enough to persuade people to buy a $10,000 smart watch.

Apple is the most popular smart phone, tablet and laptop seller in the world because people dig the exclusive design, or because people are too lazy to learn a new system, or because people around you all use Apple device, that’s why Apple can sell millions of device all over the world. But this cannot be the motivation for consumers to buy Apple gold watch. People may buy an aluminum edition or a stainless steel edition instead of the gold one with a more reasonable price. It seems that Apple watch becomes the biggest competitor of Apple gold watch.

For rich people, they may consider Apple gold watch is not worth that price. For Apple loyalists, they may buy other two editions with more reasonable prices. Apple has to find the niche market for its gold watch, and convince this group of people that it is not only a high-end technology watch, but also a luxury cachet.

How did Apple Try to Woo Chinese Users in Chinese New Year

Apple is in expansion mode in China at the start of 2015: it released its first campaign “Open Your Mind”, played New Year’s TV commercial “The Old Record”, organized several creativity seminars in Apple store, and promoted “ New Year Lucky Package” activities online.

“Open Your Mind” is Apple’s first ad campaign in China, and is considered to be a very important step. For one reason, Apple has become “the most preferred brand for gifting” in China, with Feb.19, Chinese New Year, Apple is doing all it can to cash in. For another reason, smartphone’s market is rapidly growing in China, to compete with its biggest competitor Samsung and Xiaomi, which is a Chinese local brand, Apple has to do something to woo Chinese smartphone users and attract their attention.

In this Campaign, Apple makes a microfilm named “The Old Record”. This new commercial depicts a granddaughter who utilizes Apple products to record a song that takes her grandmother back to her youth. The elements that Apple wants to deliver to its customers are elaborately designed to put into the commercial: cozy atmospheres, families, and sharing gifts. The commercial also reminds the audience that music lovers can use MacBook and CarageBand to create New Year gifts for their families. Approach to Chinese New Year, Apple’s intention, which is to encourage customers to buy Apple products as gifts, is very obvious, but not trying.

Apple also asks its users to exhibit their “Apple Works” on its official website. These works can be a photo, a short movie, a song, or a picture. Some art works have already been put on the website, and some of the works come from Chinese famous artists. By having associations with Chinese contemporary artists, Apple plans to find a way to tell consumers that it is a good global brand, rather than just a pure American brand, especially in the situation that more and more Chinese consumers are becoming aware that China can make great brands.

In this picture, the user uses iDraw to create a busy street view in Chinese New Year. iPad with iDraw makes it possible to use right hand to draw while using left hand to handle tools.

This photo comes from famous travel photographer Austin Mann. When he drove along the coast of Iceland, he saw such a magnificent glaciers. To facilitate the climb, he put all the equipment in the car, only put his iPhone 6 in his pocket, and shot this exceptionally stunning photo with a panoramic shot mode.

Hall used Procreate App to create this group of portrait, depicting interesting people he met around the university. Because he can only use iPad and art App to create pictures, no matter where he is, he is able to burst inspiration and draw it down at any time.

Apple uses these artistic stories to inspire its consumers, and also to encourage them to show their creativity and talent using Apple products, and try out Apple Apps such as iDraw, VSCO Cam and iMovie.

In order to penetrate deeper into the Chinese market, Apple not just only came up with the New Year Campaign to highlight the functional benefits of Apple products and apps, and build emotional benefits with consumers, but also plans to open several stores to expand geographically in China, and change the uniform of Apple store employees to make them looked more professional and appreciated by the customers of the fashion-oriented and higher-end products.

Apple’s intention is obvious, to woo Chinese users, attract their attention, and make it an irreplaceable product. Its recently actions highlight the importance of Chinese market to drive its sales, and also indicate that it is going to keep China at the top of its mind.