Wherefore art thou, iPhone 7?
Here's a charmer for the digital scrapbook. In its ongoing efforts to convince us the incremental changes of the iPhone 7 are actually quite magical, Apple has released "Romeo and Juliet."
The ad features your favorite star-crossed lovers, played by kids who probably have no business fooling around with poison and daggers, let alone eloping.
But the reason for this curious casting will be made clear in less than 30 seconds.
That's right, you're not in Verona. It's just a school play! (Who does Romeo and Juliet in elementary school?)
The ad concludes, "Your movies look like movies on iPhone 7" and ends with Apple's new campaign tagline: "Practically Magic."
"Practically Magic" takes a lot of pressure off the lifestyle aspects of owning an iPhone and moves us into artful storytelling, where the phone plays a role in helping us more neatly package our lives for social consumption. The ads are, conveniently, also quite shareable themselves, making this a gorgeous exercise in that most vicious of virtuous cycles—the need to both share and be shared.
Previous iterations of the campaign include "Midnight," a beautiful spot about the iPhone 7's low-light photography strengths (also touching briefly on its water-resistance), and "Balloons," a colorful tale about the phone's expressive messaging capabilities.
What's suggested in "Romeo and Juliet" is that, through the periscope of an iPhone 7, one little girl's school play has become a worthwhile cinematic experience for Dad, who's hanging on every last shot.
And while it's neither noble nor true to life, it sure is pretty—a Shakespearean rendition of how we'd actually like these moments to look and feel.
