What makes an effective consumer electronics commercial?

Three things:

1. Simple demonstrations of life-improving value of the technology
2. Happy people
3. Energizing music

Lets deconstruct the first sentence:

Simple Demonstrations: Show people what your technology can do. Put your product on the screen and let me see it in action. Apple has been relentless and genius at this. Think of an iPad commercial: often, they’re just shots of the tablet and various impressive things that it does. Consider:

Not convinced?

Amazon does the same thing, and the two most successful consumer electronics companies on the planet taking exactly the same approach is not a coincidence.
Life-Improving Value: Never focus on the features, statistics or technical specifications. Nobody wants to hear about megahertz, connectivity protocols or screen resolution. You have 30 seconds. Blow me away. Tell me how this product will improve my life.

Put me on the beach:

Or show me how a talking, thinking, understanding electronic assistant in my phone can improve my life:

…Of the technology: 

Yes, the technology is being demonstrated in these pieces. But there’s nothing technical about these commercials. Rather, they allow people think about how this technology will integrate into their lives. What will it be like to use this technology? Answer this question with your commercials.

The second item effective consumer electronics commercials share is happy people.  Happy customers. Pleased peers of the prospective customers. Effective peers. Productive peers. Peers enjoying your technology. This is incredibly powerful, because it lets me put myself in their shoes: Hey, I don’t know how to tie a bow tie either! You mean it can help me out with a flat tire? Even the first, older iPad commercial, which has no humans acting in it, shows happy people in photos during the iPad demonstration. And the viewer can be certain that the person belonging to the hands that are operating the iPad is pretty damn thrilled.

Finally, energizing music: This sets the mood. Give me something attention grabbing, approachable, and captivating. It puts people in the mood to consider new ideas. The right music will literally open viewers’ minds to learn about your device. The right music is also memorable. It’ll help people recall what your product “from that one commercial I saw a while back.”

We review:

The very best consumer electronics commercials share these traits: Simple demonstrations of the life-improving value of your products; happy people; and energizing music. None of this is hard. The hardest part, probably, is to avoid mentioning highly technical specification. But you’re making a huge investment. Why not do what works?