According to Apple, every colour has a story. Or at least, that’s what they want to tell potential young customers using microblogging site Tumblr.
While it isn’t out of the ordinary for a company like Apple to flaunt their latest devices in an expensive marketing blitz, their latest attempt to sell the iPhone 5c is a little out of the ordinary. Generally limiting themselves to more traditional advertisements, users of Tumblr can now expect to see Apple ads for the 5c through their Dashboard via the ‘Sponsored Post’ program. The post consists of a Vimeo video, where dancing colours eventually zoom out to reveal an iPhone 5c, with a generic, almost random, message at the end. It’ll also link to Apple’s own Tumblr page, with users then able to reblog, or just heart, the ads. You can check out the blog here.
While you may be scratching your head as to why we bothered covering a bunch of Tumblr ads, it’s an interesting insight into the future of advertising on the web. Apple is generally conservative when it comes to social media, not even having a Twitter, or Facebook presence (excluding iTunes), so to see the company advertising on Tumblr, one of the least conservative social networks, is different. Not only that, but it’s also a sign that Tumblr’s advertising system might just work, or even allow the company to profit from its user base through more integrated content. This isn’t a typical banner ad, or pre-roll ad, but instead feels just like anything else scrolling by on your Dashboard.
Apart from that, it’s also just an interesting signal from Apple that the phone, even months after the iPhone 5c was released, isn’t resonating with the young consumer they wanted. And in the end, maybe this is just the start of a last-resort marketing campaign for the endangered phone.