Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Marketing on the Apple Watch: terrible idea?

I’ve yet to be thoroughly convinced about the importance of wearable tech in our everyday lives. I think it’s far more niche than developers and marketers would have us believe.
However the application of wearable technology in the world of health and fitness is huge and is genuinely making a massive difference to the lives of a wide range of people. From athletes needing a convenient and accurate way to store data to regular people who just want to improve their everyday fitness with a pedometer. 
Outside of this though there is very little to convince me that the Apple Watch is little more than a device for people who are too lazy to take their phone out of their pocket when they receive an alert.  
There’s nothing that can be done on the watch that can’t be done on an iPhone. The difference is that on an Apple Watch it will be much smaller. Is anyone really going to look at Instagram on a 38mm screen?
As for advertising on the Apple Watch, imagine how irritating it would be if the basic function of a watch, showing you the time, is obscured by an ad too tiny to read.
That’s probably an extreme example, as the Apple Watch is notification-based and hopefully marketers have learnt from experience that an ad format served successfully on one device will not necessarily work just as well on a different one.
On a smartphone, marketers use notifications to advertise. These notifications only occur of course if the user has the specific app downloaded. If the notifications are too intrusive or frequent, the user will delete the app. 
Now translate that to a screen which is 81mm smaller and that you carry on your wrist all day long.
I’ll keep my old Casio thanks. It's got a calculator on it.

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