Continuing its series of TV commercials that imbue a relaxed, contemplative feel, Apple on Monday released a new ad focusing on the broad range of emotions that can be captured by an iPhone 5 running FaceTime.
Like Apple's most recent ads, "FaceTime Every Day" stitches together slices of life from multiple iPhone owners, showcasing how they use the video calling protocol to convey a spectrum of emotions without saying a word.
While not as jarringly serene as Apple's "Music Every Day" spot, the company's latest iPhone 5 ad effectively relays a clear message without using gimmicks, loud music or over-the-top visuals.
The iPhone 5 is almost transparent in the ad as such a strong emphasis is put on FaceTime, rather than the device running it. The audience is given passing glances at what users are seeing in a few over-the-shoulder shots, but the most effective are those that don't show the screen at all, when the audience is forced to see facial expressions lit by the iPhone screen's glow.
Simplicity is the hallmark of these new commercials, but with "FaceTime," Apple included actors' voices in almost every scene over a lilting piano track. The talking is mostly used as a tool to underscore the video chatting taking place, not to necessarily advertise FaceTime's audio capabilities. Indeed, a few of the clips are spoken in foreign tongues and the cuts jump in and out of calls mid-conversation, while in others all that can be heard is laughter.
The silent snippets punctuate the power of visual communication. When the audience sees a user smiling, frowning, laughing, or kissing the air, they understand that FaceTime is made to convey the unspoken.
Impressive in its simple clarity, Apple's commercial effectively paints FaceTime as more than talking at an iPhone, it is a way of expressing feelings that are otherwise difficult or impossible to communicate.
Apple slips in some usage scenarios, like low-light capabilities in the fireworks scene and access to the rear-facing camera in others. Some shots point out the teleconference-like abilities of FaceTime, where multiple people can gather around an iPhone for a group talk. For the most part, however, the ad concentrates on one-on-one communication.
The ad ends with a narrator saying, "Everyday, more people connect face-to-face on the iPhone than any other phone."