80 CREATE THE STORY
Problem and Solution in Thirty Seconds
With more than ten thousand applications available for the
iPhone, the App Store has been a resounding success for Apple.
The company features some individual apps in television and
print ads for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The television ads
are effective because in thirty seconds they paint a picture of a
problem and offer a solution.
For example, in one ad for an app called Shazam, a narrator
says, “You know when you don’t know what song is playing and
it’s driving you crazy? [introduces problem] With the Shazam
app, you just hold up your iPhone to the song, and within sec-
onds you will know who sings it and how to get it.”^5 The taglines
are always the same: “That’s the iPhone. Solving life’s dilemmas
one app at a time.”
In thirty seconds, the commercials succeed in raising a prob-
lem and solving those problems one app at a time. The ads
prove that establishing problems and offering solutions need
not be time consuming. Don’t spend too much time getting to
the punch line.Jobs Doesn’t Sell Computers;
He Sells an Experience
After identifying the villain and introducing the hero, the next
step in the Apple narrative is to show how the hero clearly offers
the victim—the consumer—an escape from the villain’s grip.
The solution must be simple and free of jargon. Visit the Apple
site, for instance, and you will find the top reasons “why you’ll
love a Mac.”^6 The list includes specific benefits and largely avoids
complicated technical language. As a case in point, instead of
saying that a MacBook Pro comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4
GHz, 2 GB, 1,066 MHz, DDR3 SDRAM, and a 250 GB Serial ATA
5,400 rpm, the site lists direct benefits to the customer: “It’s gor-
geous inside and out; it does what a PC does, only better; it has
the world’s most advanced operating system, and then some; it’s
a pleasure to buy and own.” You see, your target customers are