CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE (CX) STUDY REVEALS APPLE IPHONE ADS APPEAL TO YOUNGER GENERATIONS, CONFUSE AND ALIENATE OLDER GENERATIONS
Human Insights Platform UserTesting Captures Gen Z vs. Baby Boomer Reactions to Recent Ads; Finds Brand Loyalty Starts Much Earlier and Is More Difficult to Change Than Expected
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif – August 9, 2018 – Apple is well known for its powerful advertising. Dating back to the 1984 Super Bowl ad, the Think Different campaign of the 1990s, and the Get a Mac campaign of the 2000s, the company’s ads have been hailed as revolutionary. But Apple’s most recent iPhone ads are a big departure in both tone and focus.
To measure the impact the ads have on consumer sentiment and preference, UserTesting, the leading on-demand human insight platform, today published the 2018 CX Study: Apple iPhone Ads. The report captures the reactions of 200 iPhone (iOS) and Android customers—broken into Gen Z (18-25) versus Baby Boomers (55+) age groups—to three recent iPhone ads: Sticker Fight, Unlock, and Fly Market.
“The new iPhone ads feature confusing situations, fast cuts, and saturated colors,” said Michael Mace, Vice President of Product Marketing at UserTesting. “There’s no question that Apple is thinking different again, but this time it’s not clear what the company is intending. By capturing real human insights, UserTesting set out to uncover why.”
Key findings from the report:
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iPhone ads are designed for young people / kids. Many iOS and Android customers in the Boomer age group felt the ads weren’t aimed at them, but rather at a much younger audience—possibly even younger than Gen Z. Boomers called them “silly” and “chaotic.” Even Android customers in the Gen Z age group were more open to the ad content.
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Brand loyalty starts… at birth? Interest in the iPhone ads or in purchasing an iPhone after viewing an ad strictly followed brand loyalties. Android customers of any age were less likely to be interested in the iPhone ads and features, while iOS customers across age groups showed significantly more interest. Most customers expressed a strong preference for the devices they currently own.
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For Boomers, the ads conjured up science fiction fears. Apple’s face recognition technology created discomfort and concerns with privacy and security among many older customers. For some, it conjured up fears like being tracked by ads on the subway (a la Minority Report).
“Apple’s age-based approach to iPhone marketing appears to be paying off,” continued Mace. “In a 2018 survey, Piper Jaffray found 84% of U.S. teens expect to get an iPhone as their next phone, up from 65% in 2014. Because smartphone brand loyalty starts early and is difficult to change, it’s likely that Apple is actually trying to appeal to people even younger than those in this CX study: teens and pre-teens.”
A copy of the full 2018 CX Study: Apple iPhone Ads, including charts, is available at: https://info.usertesting.com/streaming-media-CX-index-may-2018_Registration.html. For UserTesting’s past industry CX reports, visit https://www.usertesting.com/resources/industry-reports.
About UserTesting
UserTesting (NYSE: USER) has fundamentally changed the way organizations get insights from customers with fast, opt-in feedback and experience capture technology. The UserTesting Human Insight Platform taps into our global network of real people and generates video-based recorded experiences, so anyone in an organization can directly ask questions, hear what users say, see what they mean, and understand what it’s actually like to be a customer. Unlike approaches that track user behavior then try to infer what that behavior means, UserTesting eliminates the guesswork and brings customer experience data to life with human insight. UserTesting has more than 2,100 customers, including more than half of the world’s top 100 most valuable brands according to Forbes. UserTesting is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. To learn more, visit www.usertesting.com.
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