MBI-602 Consumer Psychology JAMES CORBITT 1 Social and Consumer Psychology in Apple’s iPod Advertising campaign (2003-2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxSNwenylk Brand/Music Partnerships The advertising industry has sustained growth that appears, in numbers, stronger than many others within the creative industries. UK advertising and marketing created £13.4bn of Gross Value Added in 2014 alone (C.I., 2014). The expenditure on this market allows for more advertising agencies to convey awareness of many more brands, often with the use of Brand-Music partnerships via synchronisation (Sync) of music (see appendix 1). This synergy between music and brands allows artists songs to be licenced to advertisement agencies to be used in “synchronisation” with visual images (Harrison, 2014) to enhance a message or create an emotional response. Licenses from sync generated an estimated £18.2m income for UK record labels (BPI, 2013). Whilst there is sufficient data to account for the music industries financial benefit from brand partnerships, data to show the benefit for advertising is less evident due to its quantitative qualities being harder to measure. This document aims to show how music-brand partnerships can be mutually beneficial through an analysis of consumer psychology in Apple’s infamous “dancing silhouettes” iPod adverting campaign (2003-2008), focusing on one television advert from the campaign that features The Gorillaz’ single ”Feel Good inc.”, whilst commenting on the series of adverts as a campaign. This advert has been chosen because the data that has been compiled since its launch in 2005 by advertising agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, provides sufficient insight into its success that will help with its consumer psychological analysis.
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MBI-602 Consumer Psychology JAMES CORBITT
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Social and Consumer Psychology in Apple’s iPod Advertising campaign (2003-2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxSNwenylk
Brand/Music Partnerships
The advertising industry has sustained growth that appears, in numbers, stronger than
many others within the creative industries. UK advertising and marketing created £13.4bn
of Gross Value Added in 2014 alone (C.I., 2014). The expenditure on this market allows
for more advertising agencies to convey awareness of many more brands, often with the
use of Brand-Music partnerships via synchronisation (Sync) of music (see appendix 1).
This synergy between music and brands allows artists songs to be licenced to
advertisement agencies to be used in “synchronisation” with visual images (Harrison,
2014) to enhance a message or create an emotional response. Licenses from sync
generated an estimated £18.2m income for UK record labels (BPI, 2013). Whilst there is
sufficient data to account for the music industries financial benefit from brand partnerships,
data to show the benefit for advertising is less evident due to its quantitative qualities
being harder to measure.
This document aims to show how music-brand partnerships can be mutually beneficial
through an analysis of consumer psychology in Apple’s infamous “dancing silhouettes”
iPod adverting campaign (2003-2008), focusing on one television advert from the
campaign that features The Gorillaz’ single ”Feel Good inc.”, whilst commenting on the
series of adverts as a campaign. This advert has been chosen because the data that has
been compiled since its launch in 2005 by advertising agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, provides
sufficient insight into its success that will help with its consumer psychological analysis.
MBI-602 Consumer Psychology JAMES CORBITT
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This analysis will explore the motivations of the campaign by applying the Familiarity
Theory in influencing the consumer’s behaviour, and the Social Identity Theory to identify
impact on target demographics.
The Campaign
Released by Apple Computer inc. in November 2001, the iPod, along with it’s digital
jukebox software (iTunes) rapidly grew in sales from 600,000 sold in 2002 to 10 million
sold in 2004, just two years later (Apple inc., 2016). Some of this growth from 2003 is most
certainly a direct result of upgraded features in the third generation iPod, as well as their
move to make it compatible with Windows, exponentially growing their potential customer
base. This potential to sell iPods to a mass market needed a unique marketing campaign
to convert music consumers into iPod users. Director, Susan Alinsangan from the
advertising agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, designed the concepts for their campaign to be
launched in 2003. These featured striking block coloured backgrounds with distinct
silhouettes dancing to the synchronised music that appears to be played via their own
iPods, becoming the main feature of each advert. “The energy in the silhouettes dancing
depicts the full-bodied portability of the iPod” (Gopinath, 2014), furthermore promoting the
new age of portable music where sudden movements won’t lead to skipping CD’s like in
earlier CD Walkman players. The function of the “empty vessels [dancers] are blank
human shaped spaces that can be filled with whatever identity the audience wants and
most desires from the iPod” (Gopinath, 2014). Each advert features a song that succinctly
targets the different social identities that would become Apple’s customer base. The idea
of identity poses an interesting topic to explore through the psychological theories that are
detailed in this document.
The success of the campaign, for the brand, the ad agency and the bands is clearly
suggested in sales data and prestigious awards. For TBWA/Chiat/Day, the silhouettes
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earned them multiple awards: a “Global Effie” and a “Kelly Award”, both prestigious
awards in the profession (Sunset, 2008). The agency was also nominated as the “U.S. Ad
Agency of the Year 2004” by Adweek (O’Leary 2005). In terms of sales, Apple boasted a
38% income growth, across all products, between 2005 and 2008 (Statista, 2016) and a
21% increase in the number of iPods sold in the same period, from 42m to 197m units
(Apple Inc., 2016). Whilst the adverts can only be correlated to sales data, it is suffice to
say that this success is partly, if not largely, down to Apple’s alignment of sales and
marketing. Bowers (2015) informs that customers will notice un-alignment and are
deterred by it, sales will be saturated and lead to wasted and missed revenue.
Record labels began competing to get their artists music synced to the ads, despite the
bitter relationship between the industry and Apple’s launch of iTunes and its disruption of
the music industry supply chain. A correlation can be drawn between Apple’s 2005 advert
featuring “Feel Good Inc.” and The Gorillaz’ success. The 2005 release became their
highest chart performance to date, holding UK chart positions for 42 weeks and peaking at
number 2 during the ad’s circulation (The Official Charts Company, 2016). Its success was
also international, holding 13 weeks in the US charts and peaking at number 14 (Billboard,
2016). This took the bands career to the next level where they would go on to win
numerous awards for their music and performances.
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Social Identity Theory
By 2003, consumers no longer needed to be educated on the concept of portable music.
Consequently, Apple didn’t need to inform its audience about the concept of portable mp3
players; they needed to persuade people to buy into Apple as a brand for expressing their
identity through music. In the iPod advert, psychological theories of identity play a key role.
Research indicates the importance of music as a tool that individuals use to communicate
their social identity (Dunn et al, 2011). The use of silhouettes allows the audience to
transform into the dancers and distinguish and express the two parts of their identity
outlined in William James’ two-component identity theory (1890). The “me” part of identity
is that which is observed and known, this could be seen as the physical database of music
held on an iPod that is individual to every owner for all their social peers to see and judge.
Secondly the “I” allows the consumer to use their iPod as an evaluative tool of self-identity,
“subjective to change” (see appendix 3.1.1). The motivation for these self-evaluations is to
increase self-esteem. “For adolescents striving to establish their identities and to increase
their self-esteem, this allows them to establish favourable social and personal identities”
(Tarrant et al, 2016). These components of identity have both cognitive and emotional
aspects. We constantly compare ourselves with others, so that particular situations and
social groups exert a powerful influence on what we do and what we say (Hargreaves and
Miell, 2016, pg.7-8).
The iPod adverts, through example’s set by the dancing silhouettes clutching the product,
show that you are able to express yourself in a physical and categorical way. The iPod is a
social statement, just like dancing, which is an outward, public expression; other people
will notice the bright white iPod that you use. Social constructionist approaches to self-
identity suggest that the iPod and it’s public expression in style and function, depicted in
the advert, allow “Interplay between self and society and we cannot develop an
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understanding of one without the other, and that this is achieved through interaction with
others” (Mead, 1935). The campaign uses contrasting musical genres in each of the
adverts in the campaign to target different demographics. These differing genres among
demographics are likely to reveal different relations between personality and music
preferences (Dunn et al, 2011). When considering The Gorillaz’ chart performance before
the release of their single “Feel Good Inc.” (The Official Charts Company, 2016), it is clear
they were not in the class of “popular music” but would have an impact on the relatively
niche audiences of indie and rock subcultures that would attract their audience in a
widespread campaign like the iPods. According to Tefjel’s experiment (1971), group
favoritism within these niche genres of music can be achieved by the simple categorization
into a group no matter how arbitrary. This is achieved through the choice of music in each
advert. The variations of music genre in the iPod adverts transform the consumer’s
perception of the iPod even though the product stays the same. The consumer will show
positivity towards the iPod advert whilst their preferred genre of music is being played as it
triggers “in-group” favouritism. However, when the same person views an advert with
contrasting music that is not preferred, they will discriminate against it as an expression of
“out-group” (see appendix 3.3, Tejfel et al, 1971). The benefit to the consumer from
discriminating out-group musical identities of subcultures is to inflate positive
distinctiveness of their in-group identity of musical preference and in contrast, raise their
self-esteem (Tefjel et al, 1971). By applying this psychological evaluation, it is possible
that the iPod adverts actually influence positivity towards their product in one advert by
creating discrimination between others that contrast their musical identity.
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“In today’s world, deciding what music to listen to is a significant part of deciding and
announcing to people not just who you “want to be”, but who you are” (Hargreaves and
Miell, 2016). The imagery of freedom through dance, made possible by the iPod, is also
reflected in the lyrics and theme of the song. “Love forever, love is free, let’s turn forever,
you and me. Windmill, windmill for the land, is everybody in?” The semantics behind the
language of “love and “free” have connotations with the desires in ones social identity.
According to Rentfrow & Gosling’s (2003) model of traits in identity (see appendix 3.5),
identity can be measured by an individual’s neuroticism, extraversion, openness to
experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. “Freedom” allows an individual to
express and refine their traits in identity to be most personally desirable, which
theoretically would lead to being “Loved”. “People have an intrinsic desire to know about
themselves” (Festinger, 1954). Having freedom to achieve this allows uniformity in social
groups that an individual perceives to be important to their self-esteem. Therefore the iPod
is seen as an invaluable tool to achieve this and the advert concisely communicates this.
The last lyric in the chorus, “is everybody in?” is a rhetorical question, which in English
Linguistic theory is a question not asked for an answer, but for an effect (Study.com,
2016), mainly influence and persuasion.
The Familiarity Theory
The Familiarity Theory suggests that consumers who maintain high familiarity in products
are able to make heuristic, information-based decisions when choosing a product (Park
and Lessig, 1981). The simple concept of the iPod being a tool for music consumption
could allow for this heuristic approach to be taken by many consumers using information
stored in their Long Term Memory stores (see appendix 2.1). This allowed the iPod’s
advertising campaign the freedom to be creative rather than informative, with music
becoming the main and only narrative. However, the absence of information-based
marketing also has an impact on those with low familiarity to the product. When product
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familiarity is low, decisions are based upon the “information they think they know through
self-report” (Lichtenstein et al, 1977), consequently increasing an individual’s reliance on
price and brand information (Park & Lessig, 1981). The effects of these theories are
beneficial to the consumer’s ease of decision because they require low cognitive effort to
arrive at a decision, and this is beneficial to the consumer as it reduces decision time and
increases choice confidence, both of which are considered desirable (Park & Lessig,
1981).
Apple has been considered one of the most powerful brands of the century, in the early
2000’s spending a budget of $100 million on marketing (Khaney, 2012). In the iPod advert,
the absence of information avoids confusing an individual with low product familiarity,
focusing on Apple as a brand and making it easy to make their purchase decision through
brand reliance alone. The ability to influence consumers of high and low product familiarity
allowed Apple to target a much wider audience. Another factor that could have influenced
TBWA/Chiat/Day’s decision to avoid informational marketing is the “DRM Effect” (Kronlund
& Yoon, 1990). The effect suggests that brands with increased “memory accessibility” and
familiarity, like Apple, have an advantage over less familiar brands in the same category.
Kronlund & Yoon’s experiment (1990)(see appendix 2.2) found that high familiarity brands
are associated and accessed in an individual’s memory when they are exposed to other
brands in the same category. Therefore Apple’s competitors marketing efforts actually
strengthen their brand through the encoding process of cognition and association. Strong
brand knowledge and familiarity was key to the success of the iPod campaign. Franken et
al (2010) state, “We like to buy brands we know”, therefore achieving higher familiarity can
be directly relatable to marketing and product success.
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Part of the familiarity theory that has been thoroughly researched is the effect of “mere
exposure” on liking. Bornstein’s (1989) research into mere exposure suggests that the
more we have experienced something the more we like it. The mere exposure effect has
been observed across a range of attitude objects (Crisp et al, 2009). When applying the
theory to Apple’s iPod advert including The Gorillaz’ music, it is possible that it benefitted
both. The frequency of advert exposure to targeted audiences would have been frequent
but not invasive during the campaign. Stang & O’Connell (1974) suggested that a
relatively small number of exposures gave the greatest effect, at 10-20 exposures liking
begins to slow (Zajonc et al, 1972) and beyond this threshold, liking could be reversed
(Kail et al, 1973), supported by Brickman’s (1972) research into over exposure with music.
The advert successfully avoids over-exposure by accounting for a second condition that
effects likability via mere exposure. “Shorter durations of exposure to a stimulus
strengthen the effect” (Harrison & Zajonc, 1970). With this knowledge, we can observe the
length of iPod adverts and determine that the brief 30-second duration of each advert
exposure aims to reduce the risk of over-exposure. Furthermore, the length of time that
the audience is exposed to the brand logo within the advert is relatively short, making a
strong impression on the audience but also keeping the audience less aware of the
exposure. This unawareness to exposure also strengthens mere exposure, as suggested
by Bornstein et al (1980).
Due to the fact that the advert and synchronized music are displayed as one production, it
is reasonable to say that the psychological theory that benefits Apple’s marketing strategy
will also have a similar benefit to the artists including The Gorillaz through association.
This association combined with mere exposure could have lead to favorable perceptions
of the product due to their subliminal nature (Garivaldis & Moss, 2007). The process by
which this is possible is by assimilation bias (see appendix 2.8). If Apple’s adverts became
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familiar and liked by an individual, music in other adverts within the campaign would also
be perceived as familiar during their subconscious encoding within the individual and are
henceforth “liked” (Garivaldis & Moss, 2007). Therefore an audience of a differing song
that had featured in the campaign may have presented assimilation bias when exposed to
the familiar visual imagery of the Gorillaz’ ad and this could have influenced the likeability
and success of the song Feel Good Inc. outside of the campaign’s context.
Conclusion
It is clear that brand/music synergy is a vital part of both the advertising and music creative
industries. “The key to successful brand partnerships is to understand the ideals of a
creative versus those of a corporate” (Henley Business School, 2012). The sales data of
Apple’s iPod and the chart performance of The Gorillaz’ song Feel Good Inc. both show
that the campaign achieved the intended corporate goals whilst proving extremely
beneficial to the band. The strength in the music’s ability to target specific identities whilst
showcasing the products functionality played a larger part in the ads success than other
informational-based marketing would have done. Furthermore, the application of the
Familiarity Theory gives us an insight into the psychological effect on creating desirability
and influence in consumer behaviour and it successfully influenced a mass market into
choosing the iPod as their tool for music consumption. The strength that the campaign had
generated for Apple’s relationship with the music industry has grown ever since, with their
latest ventures including Beats One Internet radio, as well as the evolution of iTunes and
Apple Music. Forming psychological evaluations enables the music industry to be more
focused and accurate in promoting specific music for specific advertising exposure,
ensuring that investments into brand partnerships are not ill considered or wasted.