{"id":56746,"date":"2013-08-30T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2013-08-30T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=56746"},"modified":"2017-09-17T10:24:16","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T15:24:16","slug":"be-young-be-cool-be-happyas-an-apple-consumer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/08\/30\/be-young-be-cool-be-happyas-an-apple-consumer\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Young, Be Cool, Be Happy\u2026as an Apple Consumer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screenshot_1\"<\/a>This is the third post in a four part series. <\/em>\u00a0Start at the beginning with:\u00a0<\/em>Whimsical Branding Obscures Apple’s Troubled Supply Chain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I cannot watch this 2003 Apple iPod commercial without shaking my hips, even in the midst of delivering a lecture or conference presentation. In fact, I struggle deeply to refrain from jumping around in an ecstatic dance of joy.<\/p>\n

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This commercial moves<\/i> me. But, why? Yes, it has rocking music and popping colors. But, I suspect, more importantly, it has hip young things gyrating to the music, lost in the euphoria provided by an iPod<\/a> and earbuds<\/a>, with seemingly no cares in the world. For four years Apple aired a string of these, which became known as the \u201cSilhouette\u201d commercials<\/a>, each featuring a different soundtrack and style of dance.\u00a0In my previous posts, I’ve focused on two important elements of Apple\u2019s brand promise: whimsicality<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0\u00a0sentimentality<\/a>. In this post I spotlight another key finding from our research: the association of Apple products with coolness, hipness, youth, and a carefree attitude.<\/p>\n

This trend was introduced into the brand by the iPod commercial above, and it continues to be an important part of Apple\u2019s brand promise today. Similar qualities are present in this ad from early 2012, titled \u201cRoad Trip,\u201d which showcases the utility of the voice-activated assistant, Siri<\/a>, on the iPhone 4S<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

And, early this summer, Apple released a commercial that emphasizes the musical enjoyment that an iPhone can provide. The ad, which seems a re-imagining of the \u201cSilhouette\u201d campaign, depicts these young, fit, and beautiful iPhone owners as indulgent in their passions, carefree, too cool to care about dancing in public, and thus hip, energetic, and fun to be around.<\/p>\n

These ads and the many like them in Apple\u2019s oeuvre suggest that the product makes users spontaneous, proud to embrace their unique individuality, and happy to \u201clet their freak flag fly,\u201d so to speak. In this case, the brand promises uninhibited enjoyment. With their bouncing, lithe bodies and shiny, happy faces, these Apple users are the epitome of cool in today\u2019s American culture.<\/p>\n

Like the promise of playfulness, and sentimental connection to others, this aspect of Apple\u2019s brand promise<\/a> acts as a powerful fetish, in the Marxist sense<\/a>, that obscures the troubling labor conditions<\/a> and environmental pollution<\/a> in the company\u2019s Chinese supply chain. Who has the presence of mind to think about global social, economic, and environmental problems when they are busy rocking out, road-tripping, and dancing in the shower?<\/p>\n

Next: Apple\u2019s Seductive Brand Promise of Cultural Capital & Social Mobility<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D. is a lecturer in sociology at\u00a0Pomona College<\/a>. She studies the connections between consumer culture, labor, and environmental issues in global supply chains. You can follwer her at\u00a021 Century Nomad<\/a>, visit\u00a0her\u00a0website<\/a>, and\u00a0learn more about her research into Apple\u00a0<\/i>here<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the third post in a four part series. \u00a0Start at the beginning with:\u00a0Whimsical Branding Obscures Apple’s Troubled Supply Chain. I cannot watch this 2003 Apple iPod commercial without shaking my hips, even in the midst of delivering a lecture or conference presentation. In fact, I struggle deeply to refrain from jumping around in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":56772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,329,64,23703,675,290,37,76],"class_list":["post-56746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumption","tag-emotion","tag-globalization","tag-marketing","tag-psychology","tag-sciencetechnology","tag-social-psychology","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/08\/Screenshot_29.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56746"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71393,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56746\/revisions\/71393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}