Why luxury brands need the iPad

Funny how things connect up. I was reading imediaconnection.com and found a great article from Michael Estrin on the iPad’s video marketing implications. As you’ll know if you’ve been reading our blog, we’ve recently launched a new adapter for the iPad, so our clients can get their video onto it as quickly and simply as possible.

Michael’s article is too long to quote here, but his main points are:

• The iPad is likely to accelerate the trend toward more video and rich media in the banner ad space
• The rise of the iPad could change the quality of web video for the better
• The iPad could spark appreciation for video ads akin to that in high-end magazines

That last one hit me between the eyes, because it connects up in my head with another post I saw back in April, about how the iPad may be wooing luxury brands. Luxury brands are traditionally reluctant to embrace new advertising media, whether social media or anything else. Sure, some advertise on broadcast TV – particularly perfumes (odd, since you can’t smell it through the TV set). But most restrict themselves to traditional print media.

There’s a reason for this. They want to maintain exclusivity, and they tend to have a strong aesthetic sense that they want to put across. IPTV isn’t exclusive enough to appeal to luxury brands. But the iPad could be. Clever old Diane von Furstenberg has launched an iPad app, allowing you to find your nearest store (in the event that you succumb to a sudden attack of shopping). But frankly, this isn’t ambitious enough.

Luxury brands should be making much more use of video. Viewers experience print ads in one way only: visually. Video ads allow brands to give the audience a more holistic aesthetic experience. If anything, video offers more scope for making beautiful, artistic ads, not less. This will make a stronger impression on the audience, which can then be built on and turned into sales.

The iPad is perfect for this. Imagine how much more likely you would be to look up your nearest Diane von Furstenberg store if the first thing you saw on the app was an arty video of a beautiful woman gliding along a Parisian boulevard wearing one of the label’s dresses. Whereas if you see a print ad, you’re unlikely to leap up and rush out to the shop or go online.

The iPad also falls into that category of ‘necessary luxury’. It’s not in the same league as a 60 foot yacht or a set of Cartier diamonds, but all the people who have yachts and Cartier diamonds will have an iPad. $500 is peanuts to these people. They’ll view their iPad as de rigeur, like a mobile phone.

That makes it ubiquitous enough among habitual luxury customers to be an effective marketing medium, but not so common as to be unattractively plebeian. Brands that aren’t on the iPad are going to be kicking themselves in a year’s time.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 at 10:12 am and is filed under Advertising and Branding, Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.