Dive Brief:
- Marketing on the Apple Watch is a challenge for marketers wanting to reach that early-adopter audience, but not come off as invasive or creepy.
- Brands that have found early success are using the device to improve customer service rather than for promotional purposes.
- One potential way for marketers to reach their audience is through location-based messaging.
Dive Insight:
The Apple Watch is something of a conundrum for marketers. Its user base is mostly valuable early adopters and influencers, but marketing on the device is very likely to be seen as more personally invasive than even smartphones. Just because technology and data allows marketers to get really specific through tactics such as retargeting where ads essentially “follow” user across devices to hyper targeted messaging based on very specific user behaviors and actions doesn’t mean these marketing activities won’t backfire if the audience feels the messaging is too invasive or creepy. The Apple Watch definitely fits into a gray area that marketers are still trying to navigate.
That’s not to say some brands aren’t successfully taking advantage of the device. Starbucks, some airlines, Pep Boys and Starwood Hotels have all used messaging users on their Apple Watches, but instead of sending promotional messages or pushing for a sales, they are using the device to improve elements of their customer service, making users lives easier instead of making them find the branded messaging an inconvenience, or worse, just annoying.
Cole Sletten, a creative director at digital ad agency Ready Set Rocket, told Mashable, “Nobody’s really figured out how to do it yet. Right now, it feels like we're all on this learning curve together."