Apple to AT&T: We’ll handle iPhone advertising, thanks

Apple Store“It’s now official: The Omnicom agency will handle all advertising duties surrounding the much-awaited [Apple iPhone],” Brooke Capps and Alice Z. Cuneo report for AdAge.

“People familiar with the account confirm that TBWA’s Media Arts Lab will handle all creative for the iPhone, much as the agency has for iPod. The agency has handled creative duties for Apple since 1997,” Capps and Cuneo report.

“Industry watchers wondered whether AT&T’s agency of record — and TBWA’s sibling — BBDO would handle the account. Insiders say AT&T is still in discussion if BBDO will provide support advertising. The agency created the effort behind the iPhone’s predecessor, the Motorola Rokr, as it was the agency for both marketers,” Capps and Cuneo report.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: It’s obviously a good thing to have Apple in control of all iPhone advertising, so why risk muddying even a little bit of the message by handing off secondary advertising creative to BBDO? Let BBDO simply execute TBWA’s creative, if they need to be thrown a bone. Apple and AT&T should present a unified Apple-controlled message for iPhone, regardless of the advertising venue.

28 Comments

  1. Hey, since BBDO will now be sitting there with their thumbs up their butt, maybe they could help to come up with some ideas for advertising MAC OSX!!!! I still can’t understand why the eye candy can’t be showed to the M$ sheep. One slot…30 seconds…just try it, Apple. Pleeeezzzz!

  2. With such a new product, one can’t risk sending out mixed messages. It’s Apple’s product, so they should advertise it as they see fit. Apple’s agency can let BBDO execute support creative for AT&T, but with very strict guidelines.

  3. Sorry, macfanbois, but you need a good slap in the face to come to grips with reality. It’s better that you prepare for iPhone’s anemic sales now rather than read the humbling news in the future. To be specific, there are many Apple devotees who consider the iPhone completely unnecessary and for good reason. That is, probably enough Apple fans have determined that the iPhone is not the product for them and no amount of advertising by anyone is going to convince these people to change their minds.

    http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2007/05/resistiphone/index.php

  4. >Sorry, macfanbois, but you need a good slap in the face to come to grips with reality. It’s better that you prepare for iPhone’s anemic sales now rather than read the humbling news in the future. To be specific, there are many Apple devotees who consider the iPhone completely unnecessary and for good reason. That is, probably enough Apple fans have determined that the iPhone is not the product for them and no amount of advertising by anyone is going to convince these people to change their minds.>

    P-ss off back to your hole.

    MW- reaction—figures.

  5. You know, the funny thing is that most Mac fanboys (as Windows fanboys like to call us) weren’t really all that hyped up about the iPod.

    And they certainly were not very happy to see OS X go the Intel route.

    And look were that got us.

    The iPhone, iPod and other products from Apple are not for the Mac fanboys, they are for the average person and that is why they are succesful.

  6. I don’t think it will, but what if the iPhone does flop? It would be interesting to see whether Apple and AT&T are immune to making misleading statements about the success of the roll-out the way a certain Redmond-based company has about some of its recent releases.

  7. I’ve never been impressed with Apple’s ad’s – excluding the 1984 Macintosh Ad – none of the current ads really show off the FEATURES of Apples products… I agree with Georgy, if Apple had Ads that showed how sleep OSX is, people would have been running from window’s years ago… I remember sitting in law school class back in in 1992 with my iBook and having people comming up to me afterwards shocked and amazed by the “Dock.” “You mean, u just go there instead of clicking the Start Icon?” they’d ask…
    Plus I think Apple is REALLY missing an oppourtunity by not pre-loading Apple Ads on the Millions of iPods it sells…
    Maybe allowing AT&T some input would help with that.

  8. ‘s obviously a good thing to have Apple in control of all iPhone advertising, so why risk muddying even a little bit of the message by handing off secondary advertising creative to BBDO?

    Eh, Apple never makes ads. That’s Chiat Day’s thing.. Geeks think Apple is this amazing advertising powerhouse because Jobs is great at salesmanship, and Apple does marketing (which is.. listening to customers and giving them what they want)

  9. The reason that Bill Gates sold 20 million shares of Microsoft stock was to buy Macworld and convert it into Microsoft’s propaganda machine. Cancel your subscriptions now, macfanbois. Every dollar you spend goes directly into Gates’ pocket and Ballmers’s donut account.

  10. Mac_ATTY:

    Are you a liar or just a very bad ATTY?

    “I remember sitting in law school class back in in 1992 with my iBook”

    OS X came out in public beta in 2000 and the white iBook came out in 2001.

    fool

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.