Most people have probably seen this commercial by now, as it has been airing quite often on popular TV Channels recently:

But, interestingly enough, only after seeing that commercial for probably the 20th time in the past couple of weeks did I notice what Amazon’s main tactic was. Perhaps at first watch even you didn’t notice what I’m going to discuss. The speaker on the iPad Air’s side has a completely obvious British accent. Whereas the speaker on the side of the Amazon Kindle has a distinctly deeper voice with a truly “American” feel to it.

I was very surprised that I did not notice this immediately when I watched the commercial the first time as after noticing it and rewatching the commercial, it seemed so very obvious! However this is why this tactic intrigued me so much. I think, although I failed to catch the subtle reference myself, most other people must have picked up on that immediately. A very clever way to mock Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Design at Apple who hails from Great Britain and is the mastermind behind most of Apple’s products.

British accents are, for the most part, just jokes here in North America, which makes Apple’s iPad Air seem almost laughable in comparison to the Kindle. The combination of the difference in voices, and comparison of specifications in which the Kindle has a lead is a very effective tool in communicating its value and capturing the audience’s attention.

I reflected on this commercial after realizing Amazon’s strategy and looked further into such commercials which target large tech giants and came across some by Microsoft as well. Seems to me as if the smaller companies are the only ones who face the need to showcase ads which have direct comparisons to the leading products. Amazon does this with Apple, and Microsoft does it with Google.

This post is in reply to Alyssa Leung’s post detailing sex in marketing through the example of GoDaddy’s recent Superbowl commercial:

The simple answer to her question is… yes. Sex has been perhaps the most predominant tool used in creative advertising over the past few decades. Especially since globalization has put the internet in the palms of every person’s hand and social media such as Facebook and Twitter have exploded. The fact remains that sex, by nature, catches our attention. Human beings, and all reproductive animals, are hard-wired to always want sex. It’s just the way of life.

In today’s age, marketing has become almost 100% about catching the audience’s attention and then flashing the message at the very end of the advertisement to convey the real message. As can be seen by GoDaddy’s ad, the steamy kissing between the two actors has literally nothing to do with Web Hosting, but since it catches the audience’s attention, the results of the Ad were outstanding.

So, no matter what (unless morally wrong), the concept of sex will remain the most commonly used tool in marketing. Period. No other single thing causes us to react more, and that’s just how it is. So the concept of “sexism in advertising” is some what societal more than moral. Obviously society, in general, has some reservations about accepting advertisements that contain outright sexist ideas, but most of the time those ideas are just formulated by speculation. Using the GoDaddy ad as an example once again, the kissing between the two actors is in no way a necessary sexist statement objectifying women. It is simply a tool to attract the audience’s attention, and to no surprise, it catches women’s attention just as much as men’s! This debate may not even stop raging, but the facts remain facts and the numbers speak for themselves.