Apple is taking a new approach with its AirPods 2 marketing, working with influencers and figures from the world of sport and entertainment to highlight the benefits of the wireless earphones.
First up is Hope Boykin, a modern dancer and choreographer, who is a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In a featurette on the Apple website, Hope shares her love of the wireless headphones and how she uses them in everyday life.
“I knew they were going to change everything,” she said in a press release. “When I’m on the train and I look down the line of the subway, everyone has AirPods in.”
Hope draws on AirPods’ unique in-ear design, telling journalists: “I can turn and jump and leap, and they do not come out of my ear. You are untethered, but you’re still free.”
“I have my AirPods in so I can make sure my work sounds the way it should sound,” Boykin added. “But I don’t always let them hear what we’re working on. It leaves the dancers feeling a raw feeling. They aren’t trying to marry themselves to one line, or one chord, or one note. I could give them notes about how they should feel before they hear the music.”
The influencer campaign is a new strategy for Apple, moving away from traditional TV advertising and entering influencer marketing, working with established and up-and-coming talent who can spread the word about the power of the company’s technology.
It marries true to the company’s ethos of changing the lives of real people, and it will be interesting to see who else the firm targets when promoting AirPods and other Apple products, like the new iPad and iMac refreshes, announced last week.
“Freedom is a lot of things,” Boykin added. “As a performer, I can pretend. I can smile with a tear falling, or perform after the death of my father, or feel unworthy and still be able to share something, but it’s nice to be able to get lost in your space at times.”
“When I can be in a room with several other people, have my phone in my bag and my AirPods in my ears,” she finishes, “and I can lose myself in that space, I’m not tied to a cord, I’m not tied to someone’s opinion, I’m not tied to judgment, it’s just me, and then I can be as free as I can possibly be.”
Keep it AppleMagazine.com for the latest from Apple, every week.
