Apple Ad breakdown

“I’m not crying. You’re crying.”

Every so often, some excellent storytellers do magic with everyday life and make you wonder who started cutting onions. Classics include Wieden Kennedy's “Thank You, Mom” for PnG.?

All of these ads are powerful because they capture the human experience so well. The latest one to join the ranks of these emotive ads is Apple’s “Heartstrings” ad from this year. So how did they do it? They needed four building blocks.?

1. Relatable Context

A family opening gifts around the Christmas tree. It’s warm, idyllic, familiar. Right? Dad, with his family, just a typical Christmas morning. This relatable context is super important in drawing your audience into the world you want them to enter. This first step helps them vicariously live in the shoes of those on the screen. When done well, it’s seamless (like it is here) and warms up your audience, making them feel connected to the story.

2. Real Problem

Except it’s not. The father, as he looks at his daughter, seemingly remembers his daughter’s growing-up moments, but the audio is muffled at best. It seems like he can’t hear well. And he is about to miss a moment. This real problem is designed to make the audience feel concerned and to make them realize the importance of the solution.

This problem might not be one the viewer faces personally, but they know people who are hearing impaired. “Imagine not being able to hear your own children. How sad,” the viewers begin to say to themselves.

3. Real Solution

When Dad is reminded to listen to his daughter playing her new guitar, he slips in his AirPods Pro 2 with the hearing aid function. The day is saved, just in time. This real solution is designed to relieve the audience and help them understand the power of the product.

An old master copywriter used to say, “The truth is in the product.” We are often guilty of looking at the features of the product. Oh, active noise cancelling, and look! It can be used as a hearing aid. Battery life, blah blah. But someone asked an important question: So why do the AirPods Pro 2 have a hearing aid function? Why would that be important? In asking that question, the situation gets birthed, and the rest of the story takes place. But we’re not done.

4. Impact That Leads to Real Emotion

The 'impact that leads to real emotion' in the Apple ad is the father's tears of joy. The character's emotional response resonates with the audience, creating a powerful connection and leaving a lasting impression.

The solution has to make a mark or an impact. It has to change something in the character. From a slightly disconnected, isolated father to fully engaged and ready to respond, we follow his journey and feel like we’ve been on the same emotional roller coaster he’s been on. Masterful creative, impeccable cinematography and editing choices took a feature and translated into meaning - meaning for the end user.

Four important storytelling building blocks that made this ad literally sing.?

Try seeing other ads and examining whether they work against these building blocks.?