Social Media Campaign

Apple Inc.

The Apple Watch is Apple’s first entirely new Apple product in five years; it's important because it’s also the first Apple product developed after the death of Steve Jobs. The Apple Watch is the most personal computer. In other words, it’s Mini in a Massive way! An extraordinary small and personal device. It knows when you’re wearing it. You can talk to it. You can poke it, and it can poke back. It includes features like Apple Pay, fitness tracking, synced with airlines making airport visits faster, digital touch communication, and connects to home surveillance cameras and doors.

Action Item

The revolutionary Apple Watch is here. They are available in Apple stores and selected Apple certified retailers for customers to experience and try on. Check www.Apple.com to find the nearest Apple store to your location and the first 100 people to be enrolled will get their Apple Watch for free. If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to seize this opportunity and get your own Apple Watch, the time is now! Place your pre-order online at www.Apple.com/Watch and pick up your personal device at your local Apple story by avoiding any long waiting lines, pre-orders will get 20% off of the Apple Watch. 

Who

 Within the buyer persona created, Apple Watch marketing campaign and example of the targeted audience is labeled as “secretary” Amy Miller, and the “manager” Mike Donald. Apple Watch targeted audience were described as adults 30+ years old, working, very busy, making more than average yearly, and an Apple user possibly and iPhone and or a Macbook.

What

 To reach the targeted audience and to focus on the buyer persona there are specific platforms for the campaign. The main campaign is Social media, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Bloggers, Vloggers, Snapchat, celebrity endorsement and Instagram. Social Media campaign will connect different platforms by utilizing a hashtag, an example of a hashtag would be #AppleWatch #ItsHere. Reaching a bigger number of potential customers within the target audience can be expanded by an outdoor marketing campaign. Mainly in crowded cities such as New York, NY by using billboards, buses, and buildings creatively to attract customers.

When

The ideal time would be before launching the product, specifically when pre-orders begin, and it goes on until the product is available in stores and people start to know about its feature and what it can do. The length would be around six months 1/1/2016 – 6/1/2016.

Where

 Online to pre-order and know more about the product before its release www.Apple.com/watch. The second location is in stores when the Apple Watch is available for costumers to try on and experience. The third location is at selected Apple certified retailers.

Why

This marketing campaign is to promote the Apple Watch, which would help in raising the sales and store visits. Which will raise awareness of how important the Apple Watch is and help spread the message of its features.

How

 This campaign will be promoted utilizing both social media and outdoor advertisements. Regarding social media, the campaign will start using:

-         Promoted Tweets on Twitter in which you can choose a specific audience to receive your tweet.

-        On Instagram, sponsored posts where a picture with a description and hashtags would be posted, Instagram users can then share it in their feed.

-        An example of a YouTube video would be asking a Vlogger  (Video Blogger) to review the Apple Watch. Another YouTube example is to do a video comparison between the Apple Watch and competitive products such as the Samsung Gear S.

-        Creating a Facebook page will also help costumers share their experience and post in the discussion.

-        Snapchat is an excellent tool to promote the campaign, for example, Apple can create an Apple Watch Story the day that the Watch is available in store where people can post pictures of them trying it on; this would create more in store traffic the day of the release.

-        Celebrity endorsement will help promote the campaign by reaching a larger audience; people look up to celebrities and popular public figure, and this will have a positive impact on the sales of the products.

The outdoor campaign as mentioned before would take place in a very busy city such as New York, by advertising on Buses, billboards, and buildings.

Evaluation

 The campaign’s success will be measured by an increase/decrease in the Apple Watch sales, number of people that use the hashtag and the increase/decrease in the number of followers on each social media account that has been created for the Apple Watch.

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Narrative:

Amy Miller labeled as “the secretary” in the buyer persona. Started her day checking her social media accounts. The first application she checks on her iPhone is Twitter, where a promoted tweet pops in her twitter feed. Amy retweets it and shares it on her Instagram account using the hashtag #AppleWatch.  Amy scrolls down to find that her favorite celebrity Beyonce also shared a picture wearing the Apple Watch, she likes the picture and posts a comment. Amy is now very interested to know more about the Watch, so she goes into YouTube, luckily Shaytards (a popular family on YouTube with daily Vlogs) posted a video review of the product, and it features. After watching the video she clicks on the link in that appears at the end, and it takes her to www.Apple.com where she can place her pre-order.

It’s Mini in a Massive way

 Apple Inc. A multinational technology company headquarters in Cupertino California. Apple designs, develops, and sells consumers electronics, computer software, and online services. I used several websites “listed below” to find facts about Apple and the Apple Watch reviews from www.cnet.com were used in the smart watches comparisons.

I choose Apple because it’s the world’s largest technology company by total assets. According to Apple Inc. In addition to being the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization, Apple Became the first U.S. company to be valued at over US $700 billion. I love their products, my favorite part of their products is the hardware design. Very minimalistic, beautiful and sleek. 

According to apple- history.com Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976, to develop and sell personal computers. They had been friends in high school. They had both been interested in electronics, they kept in touch after graduation, and both ended up dropping out of school. That’s shocking and changes the concept of the relationship between education and success.

The name was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977. Steve Jobs had worked during his summer vacation at an apple farm, and at that time he loved the Beatles’ record label, Apple. He also liked apples and believed that it’s the most perfect fruit. He and Steve Wozniak were trying to think of a name for this new company, and they decided that if they couldn’t think of one by the end the day that was better than Apple, they would choose Apple. Apparently they couldn’t think of anything better. So the theory that Apple was named because Alan Turing took a bite of a poison apple when committing suicide is entirely NOT true. According to biography.com Alan Turing was a British computer scientist, mathematician, logician and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science.

Fun Fact: The secret of the “i” before all the Apple products. It originally stood for the internet, but now it pretty much stands for “cool Apple consumer device.”

To be more specific, for this project I choose one Apple product, the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is Apple’s first entirely new Apple product in five years; it's important because it’s also the first Apple product developed after the death of Steve Jobs. The Apple Watch is the most personal computer. YES, a computer on your wrist! In other words, it’s Mini in a Massive way! An extraordinary small and personal device. It knows when you’re wearing it. You can talk to it. You can poke it and GUESS WHAT? It can poke back.

According to Cherlynn Low on tomsguide.com a blog about technology. The Apple Watch has countless features; a new feature is the Starwood Hotel’s Preferred guests app. The program allows you to make a reservation using the watch, and it lets you use your Apple Watch into a hotel room key. Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Telegraph that the watch is designed to replace potentially car keys. That is very exciting; my favorite part is no need for me to hunt four my key before leaving the house. It’s designed to participate in nearly every moment of your day from the moment you wake up until you sleep. According to Apple’s HongKong official website, the watch can receive and respond to notifications in an instant, track your daily activity, control your music using only your voice, and pay for groceries.

Cherlynn Low also focuses on an important factor of the Apple Watch is Siri. The voice- controlled assistant got more personal since it’s literally on your wrists. You don’t have to click, or lift your finger to check anything, Siri is there to do that for you. Siri is also available on the iPhone, but people are most likely to use Safari on their phones that as Siri. You can just say “Hey Siri” without pressing anything to get the voice assistant to take your command.

 According to Low, the digital touch communication is also new. It’s the fun aspect of the watch. You can simply draw a smiley face on the watch and send it to a friend, or be extra romantic and send your heartbeat. Another fun thing to do with your Apple Watch is to use it as a walkie-talkie and share sound bites. Low also mentions on his website that you can also use Digital touch to make watch-to-watch calls to friends that have the Apple Watch.

A very convenient feature is Passbook Integration. Makes your airport experience easy and smooth. Passbook on the Apple Watch allows you to quickly pull up your plane ticket, boarding pass and loyalty cards without having to use your phone. Not only that but when you enter a place where your discount or loyalty cards can be used you will get an alert.

Low also mentions in his website tomsguide.com that you may never have to leave your couch again with the Remote Control Function. The Apple Watch skips through music on your iPhone or iTunes music library, navigate your Apple TV menu, enable “Do Not Disturb” and “Airplane Mode” modes on your phone or turn on/off the smart lights in your home. All from your wrist. According to tomsguide.com Kevin Lynch in an event shows how you can use the smartwatch to not only remotely unlock your door, but through a connected camera, see who enters your home as well.

Apple Watch vs. Samsung Gear S vs. Pebble Steel

Samsung launched their smart watch “Samsung Gear” two years before the Apple Watch. To properly assess the Apple Watch, here’s comparison between the two, cnet.com added the Pebble Steel to the comparison as well since it has similar features. Here’s a table to help represent the comparison according to their website:

Apple Watch

Pebble Steel

Samsung Gear S

	Apple Watch	Samsung GearS	Pebble Steel
Compatible with	iOS only	Android only	Both Android and iOS
Shape	Rounded square	Square	Square
Material	Steel, aluminum, or 10k Gold	Plastic	Stainless steel
Default strap	Varies	Rubber	Stainless steel
Water resistance	Yes	Water resistance for 30 minutes, 3 feet	Water resistance up to 50 meters
Connectivity	Bluetooth 4.0 LE only	Bluetooth 4.1 LE, 3G, and Wi-Fi	Bluetooth 4.0 LE only
Charging	Included charging cradle	Included charging cradle	Proprietary cable
Color options	Stainless steel, black, yellow gold, rose gold, silver, gray, and aluminum	Black, and white	Black, and Silver
Extra features	Heart-rate monitor, accelerometer, remote camera	3G, Wi-Fi, heart-rate monitor	Pebble apps
Price	Starts at $350	$299	$250
Band	Removable Band	Removable Band	Removable band

The mobile wallet

Before the Apple Watch, Apple Pay turned the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus into a mobile wallet. It’s the same technology that used for years with Google Wallet; also according to cnet.com the only difference is that Google hasn’t made it compatible into Android Wear, that means you can’t use the Gear S for any payment. Pebble Steel doesn’t have the payment options either. Which makes Apple Pay an outlier.

Fitness

Cnet.com also mentions that the Pebble Steel is the least capable fitness tracker; it had a very limited utility since it relies on third-party apps. On the other hand, both the Samsung Gear S and Apple Watch have more potentials when it comes to fitness. Both are packed full of tracking tools, including accelerometers, and the heart rate monitor. It’s important because Google Fit and AppleKit will collect all of the data and serve it up to you, this helps the user to track their activity and see if whether if they're reaching their fitness goals or not.

To be fair, Android was the first out to apply the fitness tracking technology. The Samsung Gear S shows you the number of steps you’ve taken and works with various apps such as Runkeeper to report your exercise routine. Apple’s implementations are also advanced the built-in Activity and Workout apps give you a quick glance at how active you are. You can craft your workout too; this is perfect for burning off the calories and make the best results off of your workout.

Design

Cnet.com says that the most obvious difference between these smartwatches is in their design. This makes a lot of sense since all companies are hoping to appeal to as many people as possible. The unique thing about Apple is that it offers two sizes; 38mm (1.4 inches) tall and 42mm (1.65 inches) tall. The smaller option is far more appealing to anyone with a small wrist; it’s also more compact than the other smartwatches. The Samsung Gear S is larger than the Apple Watch, which makes it a better fit for larger arms. The Pebble, on the other hand, falls between the Apple Watch and Gear S making it a medium fit.

Speaking about style, the Apple Watch has the most style options, three different models, six finishes, and six watchbands. This adds to it the fashion accessory aspect for both men and women, proving that technology and fashion can meet. I agree with cnet.com when saying the Pebble has more of a masculine design, and the Samsung Gear S looks like a tiny smartphone embedded into a watchband. It’s massive!

If you think about it, no one “truly” needs a smart watch. It’s an eye catchy fashion statement. Even though smart watches display information that’s already available on smartphones, smartwatches are still so awesome, and it can make your life slightly easier. Needless to say you can expect to see smartwatches everywhere in the near future, they may even substitute smartphones too.

One more reason to love Apple Watch According to theverge.com

 Every so often, the Apple Watch thinks about your heartbeat.

References

• http://www.apple.com/
• http://www.biography.com/
• http://www.tomsguide.com/
• http://www.cnet.com/news/
• http://www.apple-history.com/faq#faq_1600
• http://www.theverge.com/a/apple-watch-review

New Balance of Power

Article Summary -- The People Formerly Known as the Audience

First, I must say that I enjoyed reading this well-written piece. The article talks about “the people formerly known as the audience" (1), whom not only decided to write on their own, but to broadcast using both voice and video online instead of regular media platforms.

 I agree with the author when saying “Think of passengers on your ship who got a boat of their own” (1) because the channels between the media creators and the consumers have changed, for example, several years ago the relationship was stable, in other words, very limited. Currently, the Internet drastically changed that, by creating different platforms and connecting different cultures to address different message, according to the article “broadcasting on your frequency” (1).

The author then explains how he doesn’t think that “the people have the power now, and the media lost theirs” (1) instead, he believes that there has been a “shift”, resulting in a new balance of power. Discussing this topic is very important, especially when bloggers and vloggers –VideoBloggers- are on the rise. And with that frequency, I strongly believe that it can have a huge impact on the world, hopefully, a positive one if done right. The controversial question remains, is it enough for a living? Or do bloggers and vloggers eventually need to seek a job in “the official media”? To answer that, I believe that if done correctly, with the appropriate time and effort, it can by very successful.  

Overall, great piece.

Work Cited:

Rosen, Jay. "The People Formerly Known as the Audience." (2006). Press Think. Web. 26 Nov. 2006.