Chinese Model Hints at Fashion-Oriented Advertising Push for Apple Watch

[usarioclave]

My wife already is planning her aWatch purchase. The iPhone 6+ is too big to use as a phone, so she's already budgeted $$ so that she never has to take it out of her purse.

iPhone 6+ -> tablet
BT headset/car -> phone
aWatch -> text messages + phone + calendar

<shrug>

It was this or a rolex, and it looks like the aWatch won, at least for now.

 

[gnasher729]

(About Apple outselling Samsung's watch at least ten to one).

Who cares? I don't.

I know. You haven't been posting anything here unless you could think of something that sounds negative about Apple, so nobody really thinks you would care about Apple's fashion watch outselling Samsung's stalker watch ten-to-one.

But I must say, it is amazing how vocal you are trying to critisize the Apple watch when you don't care.

 

[topmounter]

Right now smart watches have a "nerd" vibe to them.

Nobody is going to buy them if they're seen as for nerds. Nerds are seen as undesirable and unattractive to most people.

The genre needs a fresh fashion approach if it wants to be taken seriously.

That's more or less my point. Apple is trying to make the modern iteration of the calculator watch "fashionable". Are there enough of those people that otherwise wouldn't wear calculator watch out there to make calculator watch a success this time around? There either are or Apple is turning the The Apple Store into The Sharper Image 2.0.

 

[mozumder]

That's more or less my point. Apple is trying to make the modern iteration of the calculator watch "fashionable". Are there enough of those people that otherwise wouldn't wear calculator watch out there to make calculator watch a success this time around? There either are or Apple is turning the The Apple Store into The Sharper Image 2.0.

The key difference here is that Apple is focusing on art direction, as opposed to functionality.

The only question is if the quality of their art direction measures up to what critical fashionable people expect.

 

[IJ Reilly]

No surprise. If Apple makes inroads in the fashion market, this would give them an advantage that won't be so easy for others to copy. The watch makers would need to reach out to Google (not an easy proposition), while the other tech companies would be harder pressed to strike deals with the fashion world than Apple.

Yes, you put your finger on it. This is the hidden-in-plain-sight significance of the Apple Watch. In the past, Apple's products became hip and fashionable mainly as a function of their technological cool factor. The watch is Apple's first effort to deliberately meld fashion and tech cool in one product by design. This is a more interesting experiment than is being widely noticed. If it succeeds, as you say, this will be a difficult feat for anyone else to duplicate.

 

[Rogifan]

Wait to be several days late on this story MR. 😀

 

[512ke]

Early prototype lol

 

[cube]

ImageEarly prototype lol

Meh. That kind of thing was really useless, unlike Casio's later scientific calculator watches.

 

[512ke]

Meh. That kind of thing was really useless, unlike Casio's later scientific calculator watches.

The early Casio watch was very useful for people who did not know what day of the week it was, and who could not add.

 

[bbeagle]

Are there enough wannabe hipsters to make iWatch a success? Paying celebs to wear iWatch makes me think Apple has serious doubts.

You DO understand that's how advertising works? Make people want your product by making you happy when you see it (fun music, people having fun with your product), show the product with a celebrity or cause you admire. Advertising appeals to our emotions.

If you were the Ad agency, would you simply show a 30 second image of the Apple watch with no sound? I'm sure that would work. Sigh.

 

[blucurv]

That's more or less my point. Apple is trying to make the modern iteration of the calculator watch "fashionable". Are there enough of those people that otherwise wouldn't wear calculator watch out there to make calculator watch a success this time around? There either are or Apple is turning the The Apple Store into The Sharper Image 2.0.

Image

I don't know. The calculator had one purpose, to function like a calculator. Whereas, the Watch has so many cool complementary implementations that could change how we interact with objects.

A good example is Pay. Using a phone to pay is more awkward than using your wrist to pay. I could see more things like these where you can use your wrist to unlock your house door, turn on your car, etc.

 

[Jakexb]

1. The user interface is a confusing mess and it has to be controlled by constantly switching between 5 different input methods! Touchscreen, press touchscreen, a button, a little scroll wheel, clicking on the scroll wheel... this is insane!

I'm pretty sure you just talked about 2 different input methods. Screen and crown.

By your definition of an input method, iPhone has at least 4 input methods, without even getting into multitouch.

 

[k995]

Less bulky that the 360 and has much higher specs, design and fit.

Yeah specs are better, sure thats important for a watch, or are you actually going to run heavy apps on it? Apple wants you to use it as some extra device as it should just be to complement it .

Honestly who is going to watch pictures on it when yu have an iphone?

BTW, why not sell it as tech and fashion? Nothing precludes it. That's basically how high end cars are sold.

Not really this is how you market gucci handbags

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I don't know. The calculator had one purpose, to function like a calculator. Whereas, the Watch has so many cool complementary implementations that could change how we interact with objects.

A good example is Pay. Using a phone to pay is more awkward than using your wrist to pay. I could see more things like these where you can use your wrist to unlock your house door, turn on your car, etc.

Yeah you are reaching as if they couldnt build that in the phone itself

 

[Arndroid]

The watch does not look too big on her slender wrist.

I think one thing apple did right was having two reasonable sized devices while also offering three different models as well as a good selection of quality bands.

I think some combinations look bad and some look really amazing. This provides them with a significant styling advantage over others in the computer watch segment.

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apple has the money to do legit anything...and what do we get a ******** copied watch...and lamed articles ever wtf happened...i remember when early rendering of this device had me excited 🙁

I don't remember any of the mock ups (that were actually the least bit feasible) being anything but much much worse than what apple delivered.

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So lame.

But it's the only way to sell this thing. No one who's into tech is excited about it, because it's not an exciting tech product.

So what do you do?

You go to Paris Fashion Week and to fashion models and you try to make this ugly thing into a must have fashion accessory for desperate Vogue readers who buy fake Armani hand bags.

Yeah it is a horror that people who have worn calculator watches are not singing the praises of the apple watch lol. Lots of the same people who think the ridiculous 360, with its single design and a huge chunk of the display missing is good.

 

[bobob]

If they put the same amount of effort into the Apple Watch's battery life as they are on celebrity marketing, the Apple Watch will last a week on a single charge.

I would bet dollars to donuts that they tried just as hard if not harder.

 

[Arndroid]

According to Nielsen, a global marketing and advertising research company, Apple devices have made 891 appearances in TV shows in 2011, which is an increase from 613 appearances in 2009. Also, Brandchannel, which tracks product appearances, reported that Apple products popped up in over 40 percent of movies that struck gold in the weekly box office in 2011. This is huge compared to most brands. While most companies have to pay to have their products featured in a TV show or film, Apple has managed to do so for free by simply offering as many free iPhones, iPads, and Macs as needed. "Apple won't pay to have their products featured, but they are more than willing to hand out an endless amount of computers, iPads and iPhones," said Gavin Polone, producer of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. "It's kind of a graft situation."

Apple's product placement goes back to the 1990's when the PowerMac laptop made an appearance in Mission: Impossible. Now, the latest Mission:Impossible movie is featuring about eight minutes of Apple products like iPhones, iPads and Macs. The approximate value of this screen time is $23 million.

http://tinyurl.com/bmvg5r6

It is funny to see on shows like The Big Bang Theory where companies like Dell pay for product placement but apple notebooks and iPads still show up. Often with just a small bullet hole sticker covering up a small corner of the case.

 

[k995]

Yeah it is a horror that people who have worn calculator watches are not singing the praises of the apple watch lol. Lots of the same people who think the ridiculous 360, with its single design and a huge chunk of the display missing is good.

Whats ridiculous about that? It looks better then apple watch, works great and is avaiable .

Oh and that huge chunk out is about the same as the huge bezel around the apple watch

 

[bobob]

That's more or less my point. Apple is trying to make the modern iteration of the calculator watch "fashionable". Are there enough of those people that otherwise wouldn't wear calculator watch out there to make calculator watch a success this time around? There either are or Apple is turning the The Apple Store into The Sharper Image 2.0.

Image

Heh - - that's like saying the iPhone is just an updated calculator.

 

[Arndroid]

Star-power is not what this was about; otherwise, Apple easily could have gone to Hollywood stars, as they sometimes have in pitching other products. Ms. Wen is known for one thing: being a model, because she possesses the precise type of beauty sought after in the fashion marketing world.

It does seem like many people don't understand what models do for a living. Undoubtedly a high percentage of high end Swiss watches have been on the wrists of models.

 

[TigerMSTR]

I have a feeling apple is holding something back in the Apple watch and would give out more details at the iPad event or perhaps later..

Of course they are. We know next to nothing about the software on the device. Who knows that they have up their sleeves.

 

[Arndroid]

That's more or less my point. Apple is trying to make the modern iteration of the calculator watch "fashionable". Are there enough of those people that otherwise wouldn't wear calculator watch out there to make calculator watch a success this time around? There either are or Apple is turning the The Apple Store into The Sharper Image 2.0.

Image

Disagree. I think the other offerings are the calculator watch. Apple is trying to make a watch that happens to be able to calculate.

 

[greytmom]

Kind of loving that red band on the model.

 

[iZac]

This kind of manufactured celebrity crap (I assume she's a celebrity if she's being discussed so casually?) should be beneath apple and just pushes me even further away from getting an apple watch. Wait, will it now be hipster and counter culture to use an analouge watch? Damn it...

 

[NY Guitarist]

It makes perfect sense to use a model to market the iWatch.

After all it IS part fashion accessory, so the fashion focused market will be all over it.

Plus, what better way to get millions of nerds to check out a tech product than to show a super pretty girl with it?

 

[inscrewtable]

1. The user interface is a confusing mess and it has to be controlled by constantly switching between 5 different input methods! Touchscreen, press touchscreen, a button, a little scroll wheel, clicking on the scroll wheel... this is insane!

If only it had the simplicity of the mactini.