Longposting: the case of Apple’s iPad

Life on iPad — this is how the text storytelling sells

Kirill Shikhanov
The Longposting

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Apple has recently launched its “Life on iPad” campaign,

This is the brilliant example of how the longposting works:

  • Long-form type of content: stories and examples illustrated
  • Communication: not a direct sell, but a storytelling

Let’s analyze it in few steps.

Presentation

The campaign runs for all languages.

French
Russian
German

See the skin-diver in the bottom row? That’s a tile for the campaign.

Cover image

By choosing a cover image Apple signals that it will be showcasing interesting stories, not products technical characteristics.

And we see it by clicking the tile.

“Life on iPad” English page

Caption

The title of the story matters. A lot.

First of all, Apple highlights that the tile is about stories. Simply compare: iPad Air — iPad Mini with Retina Display — Life on iPad.

Second, the word “Life” is strong enough to be ready to listen to stories and to express emotions.

Now it’s time for stories

That’s about Apple’s presentation of stories on iPad.

Already familiar with the approach? May be. A collection of stories, big pictures, even more visual power, utilizing cover images, typography, spacing.

Stories

The new idea about stories’ pages is that Apple shows it as real stories/articles, the ones we used to on Medium: full-screen text, large quotes, titles and subtitles, left/right aligned images, even more pictures, also with text above.

Just compare it with iPhone 5S Forward thinking page to notice some incremental changes.

And see any of Medium’s Editor’s Picks as well to understand the beauty of long stories.

Full-screen text, large quotes, titles and subtitles, left/right aligned images, even more pictures, also with text above.

So these are the elements of Life on iPad articles.

Cover image and title

Subtitles and short article description

Quotes

Text illustrations

Smart typography

To sum up.

Apple has used the longposting approach with all the style it has.

And that’s all.

Who’s next?

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