The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic recession have negatively affected many people`s mental health and created new barriers for people already suffering from mental illness and substance use disorders. During the pandemic, about 4 in 10 adults in the U.S. have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, a share that has been largely consistent, up from one in ten adults who reported these symptoms from January to June 2019 (Household Pulse Survey, January 2021). A KFF Health Tracking Poll from July 2020 also found that many adults are reporting specific negative impacts on their mental health and well-being, such as difficulty sleeping or eating.
orytelling can be applied to many different marketing techniques, including advertisements on television, online campaigns and even static posters/banners. Advertisements that appear on TV can be believed to be the most popular, where it’s you’re your 30 second gap to shine. However, the arrival of YouTube, Netflix and on demand streaming where the consumer decides which advertisements they want to watch, the effectiveness of television ads have decreased (Edson and Beck, 2012). This suggests that companies need to create a thirty second story/experience that will completely captivate the consumer after only seeing it once or twice, making them part of a brands experience and image. The reason they must make it memorable is, because as research shows, the reason these campaigns are becoming less effective because online streaming and on demand are becoming more popular. People no longer sit there through five minutes of advertisements that disturb their favourite programme if they have a connection to the internet. Everything is available at the click of a finger, so long as you are connected. I’m not suggesting that TV ads are becoming useless, because that is not the case. Most people own and watch a TV, and do still sit through ad breaks, it’s just that people have grown to find them an annoyance and barely take any notice. Brands can use storytelling as a tool on their TV ads to make the thirty seconds they have as unique and enticing as possible, and it is the larger, more successful brands that do this the best. When brands use each marketing technique in conjunction with each other, to tell an impactful story, they can achieve “consumer awareness and loyalty, be it television, online, radio, or magazines” (Fog, 2004:164).
One brand that is seen everywhere is Apple, and as a brand they love to get people talking about them. Whether this be using campaigns or products, they have a way of making people talk about “the product, whether it be a Mac, an iPod, an iPhone or an iPad, and the experience with Apple itself as if they were an important relationship” (Edson and Beck, 2012:1). It is clear that Apple have this relationship with its consumers, it is noticeable to anyone. The question is, how have they done this? By dissecting two of Apples most iconic advertisement campaigns, we will be able to see exactly how Apple have managed to use storytelling as a marketing technique to create an emotional connection with the consumer.
Apple are one of the brands that have utilised many storytelling techniques throughout many of thei
