The Boat Airpod ad is cringe and it is genius.
The Boat Airdopes (yes, that’s what they are called) start at 1,099₹. The new Apple AirPods will cost you 20,000₹. Boat is clearly not competing with Apple nor are they targeting Apple’s demographic. So why is Boat taking a dig at Apple in their ad? They are not going to sway any potential airpods buyers to buy the boat airdopes anyway
Because the real purpose of the ad is to give a boat customer a good reason to buy boat products instead of bad one. “I am no apple fanboy sheep, I have a distinct taste hence I buy boAt earphones” is a much better proposition than”I buy boat headphones because they are cheap and value for money”. It’s all about making the consumer feel good about buying your product.
The ad is genius on another level as well. It elevates Boat’s perceived premium-ness compared to its real competitors like noise, protronics, and the gazillion Chinese brands. The perception that the boat is comparable to Apple (even if it fails in the said comparison) makes it feel more premium than these other brands.
The third level of genius is the fact that none of the boat’s competitors can copy the strategy. Noise cannot compare themselves with Apple, they will be labeled as copycats. They cannot compare themselves to other premium headphone brands like Bose or Sennheiser as these brands are not as recognizable as Apple or have a cult following.
In summary, the ad achieves these three things, while creating a lot of free PR in the form of dumb MBA grads writing about Boat on their blog.