TOW #9 - Visual Text: Apple iPhone 5 “FaceTime Every Day” Ad

The Apple iPhone 5 advertisement titled “FaceTime Every Day”, which originally aired earlier this year in August, uses extremely diverse exemplification and personal hand-held camera shots to create a personal feel that allows Apple to display the many instances in which people can, and do, use FaceTime. The ad is comprised of several short clips that show families and friends, husbands and wives, brothers and sister, parents and their children, all using FaceTime to connect with each other. Also important to note is that the subjects in each clip vary significantly, thus creating a very racially, ethnically, and socially diverse audience. For example, one shot goes from a young African American man sitting on his front steps FaceTiming with someone in English, to a teenage Japanese girl conversing in Japanese, to a middle-aged Caucasian women communicating in Sign Language. Between all of the clips within the commercial, nearly every race, both genders, and even several different languages are all represented. This makes the iPhone and FaceTiming seem like a good fit for anyone, as almost everyone around the globe is using it, making an effective bandwagon appeal. Additionally, it makes it almost impossible to not find at least one person or situation within the commercial that you can identify with.

The use of slightly shaky hand-held camera shots, often very close to the subject or subjects, also gives the commercial a very personal feel. The shots make it seem almost as if the people and situations displayed in them are real-life instead of actors in a carefully crafted scene, and that the audience is right there with them, very similar to the effects of watching a home video. This makes the iPhone and FaceTiming seem like a necessity that every family, couple, or pair of friends needs to have.

Overall, I found the ad to be successful in its use of extremely diverse exemplification and personal hand-held camera shots to create a personal feel that allows Apple to display the many instances in which people can, and do, use FaceTime.