The Spotlight

New Amazon Kindle Ad Sparks Your Imagination

amazonjAdvertisers of ordinary e-readers spend all their time talking about how their particular piece of technology works.

This new ad for the Amazon Kindle takes a different approach, showing you how it sparks your imagination.

The ad is brilliantly conceived and directed by photographers Angela Kohler and Ithyle Griffiths, and stars Annie Little, who also sings the soundtrack.

My favorite part? Showing that the female imagination isn’t limited to fairy princesses – it’s just as comfortable in the worlds of bush pilots and Davey Crockett.

In my estimation, a miniature masterpiece.






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9 Comments For This Post

  1. Kelly Watson said:

    I like it … but I can’t help thinking it’s kind of a rip-off of Oren Lavie’s music video. (I think it’s the part where the woman is falling.)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY

    That said, there’s probably dozens more stop-motion videos like these.

    -December 3, 2009 at 3:13 pm
  2. Well, stop-motion has been around as long as photography and film. But I see where you’re coming from – that’s a cool video AND song!

    I give the creators of the ad credit for putting their own spin of creativity on it, while getting the all-important persuasive message across. All in 30 seconds. :-)

    -December 3, 2009 at 3:18 pm
  3. Tim Miles said:

    Michele – love the creative angle, but a colleague with whom I shared it raised a relevant point:

    “I wonder if it might be like the old Alka Seltzer campaigns, where everyone loved the ads but nobody connected them to the product.”

    It doesn’t do much to bridge the woman’s transformative journey to the Kindle. Just a tag at the end. What do you think?

    -December 3, 2009 at 4:09 pm
  4. Paul Boomer said:

    Not only does the ad defy the stereotypical “limited to fairy princesses” female mind, it also invigorates the mind of the male ignoramus. The ad appears to not limit Amazon to demographics but instead it broadens Amazon’s access to real people.

    So many times you can tell a company is targeting their ad to a particular demographic. Unfortunately, demographically focused ads go so far. Great ads capture the imagination and places that person into the ad… regardless of financial or socioeconomic status.

    Great find Michele and bravo to Amazon.

    -December 3, 2009 at 4:12 pm
  5. Oh, I would have to disagree, Tim. I think the ad is strongly persuasive. She has the Kindle in her hands through the first few seconds of the ad, and the flow of transformation is sticky enough to make you keep watching to see where this is going.

    I think there is a percentage of readers who are familiar with Kindle and will “get it” right away. I also think there is an increasing number of readers who are curious about e-readers, and this ad validates what they’d hoped for – that an e-reader allows for just as much connection with imagination as a bound book.

    In my opinion, it’s spot-on.

    -December 3, 2009 at 4:40 pm
  6. Well said, Paul. As I said in my comment to Tim, capturing the imagination = stickiness, and I think this is as fine an example as they come.

    Hmmm… I wonder how many men are watching this ad and thinking, “I want to buy that for my wife/girlfriend this Christmas.” ??

    -December 3, 2009 at 4:42 pm
  7. BigEdinTx said:

    Several think that right after the vast majority think, “Hmmm, interesting woman” whatever that reveals about Y DNA or mY DNA.

    There is a www. missing in front of your link for Annie Little. It breaks.

    I don’t know when www variants became a link breaker. Seems like a new feature to me.

    -December 4, 2009 at 8:42 am
  8. Kat Gordon said:

    Thanks for sharing this, Michele. I agree that the ad works at overcoming readers’ fear (mine included) that the device takes away from the reading experience. They cleverly dispel that notion in an entertaining way.

    Reminds me loosely of an ingenious radio campaign done years ago by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). To illustrate the speed of their new trains, the spots were voiceovers reading passages from compelling novels, only to be cut off by the “beep” of a train arrival right at the most pivotal part of the book. The spots ended with a voiceover that said something like “with faster train commutes to San Francisco, you’ll have to start reading shorter books.”

    -December 4, 2009 at 12:20 pm
  9. That’s great, Kat. I’d love to hear those ads.

    -December 4, 2009 at 1:06 pm

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