A few lessons from Apple Vision Pro

I’ve long admired Apple’s storytelling. I always saw their company as blending two valuable assets: great products and great stories.

Great products don’t sell themselves. Great stories don’t sell great products. You need both to build lasting companies. I will never forget Steve Job’s analogy about the iPod — "you can take your entire library with you into your pocket.”

Today was Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. Although we’re in a very different era, re-watching some of the magic reminded me about how great stories, and by extension great products, go.

Here are some things that I noticed, which can be applied — you guessed it — to Arcade demos. I approach this primarily from a storytelling technique perspective, and based on the video that announced the Apple Vision Pro keynote:

1. Open with a grand vision

They start with a declarative and almost absurd statement: “The era of spatial computing is here.”

You want to start grand.

It is statistically proven that attention spans dramatically taper off after five minutes during any important presentation. Start with a hook that will grab the attention of your captive audience, and keep them there.

Note that I say “almost absurd.” This is a delicate balance. I’ve read blog posts or listened to pitches that open with statements so absurd, and then discover that we’re talking about a feature — and I lose trust in the presenter. But most people underestimate the power of their vision and product, and so I would err on the side of being absurd.

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2. Talk about use case before feature

Here, they walk you through different scenarios about the Apple Vision Pro. It’s hard to imagine how it could work until you see it in different contexts: inside the plane, at work, and at home watching TV.

Note that they do not talk about the audio capabilities or specific features until very deep into the video.

One big mistake that I see marketers do is to dive too fast into features, before the audience is sold on the potential of what could be. Start there.

3. Contrast between worlds, constantly

If you look at the arc of any great video game, or novel, many of them use this familiar storytelling technique. The greatest sales deck even uses this technique.

During the Apple Vision Pro keynote, the viewer wearing them (and by extension, us) is constantly switching between worlds — the world of the living room, with the world that they’re immersed in.

This is a great way to keep your captive audience captivated. Variety is the spice of life!

From a demo perspective, this means constantly contrasting between the before and after.

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There’s a lot of other things that I appreciated, but these were the main ones that I noticed:

1. Start with a grand vision

2. Talk about use cases before features, and

3. Contrast between worlds.

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Happy storytelling!