New Apple ad depicts lovely balloon invasion to highlight new features in Messages
Balloons can signify lifting up, letting go, unimaginable joy or simply a birthday wish. When seen by the thousands, they can inspire awe, maybe a little fear, or remind you of a certain classic Pixar.
For Apple, though, balloons are now just another way to add emotion to text messages. In iOS 10, there are a whole bunch of new ways to express yourself in messages (Apple calls it expressive messaging). In addition to drawing doodles, sending heartbeats and taps, each message (between iMessage users, of course) can include effects like bubbles, confetti and, yes, balloons.
To highlight this new feature, Apple has devoted an entire commercial to the Messages app, specifically, its new ability to send balloons along with each text message.
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The commercial itself appears to be a blend of a balloon love story (the red balloon looks lost and forlorn until it finds a yellow balloon) and an invasion, where thousands of balloons cover a city. Don't worry, no one goes running through the streets trying to escape the balloons. Instead, they're blissfully unaware as the balloons grow in numbers, float by windows and invade apartments, all while the slowed down version of the song "I will Follow you," sung by Toulouse, gently plays in the background.
Unlike some previous Apple commercials, this one was not shot with the iPhone 7, which makes sense, since the focus here is on an iOS 10 feature, which could work on devices going all the way back to the original iPhone 5.
Topics Apple Advertising
Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
