MacNN today reports on Merill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich’s research note to clients. Based on an interview with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, Milunovich indicated that Apple may begin “another heavy ad campaign highlighting Macs. Currently, Apple’s TV spots only feature the iPod, but the analyst is lookig to coming Mac ads to augment the halo effect.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If true, let’s hope that this campaign includes television ads that show Macs doing things that would surprise and interest average personal computer users, instead of featuring a Mac user being blown through the walls of his home or some other equally insipid, waste-of-money, zero-impact idea. Maybe Apple really should hold “The $1,000,000 Apple Macintosh Ad Contest” after all?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Forrester analysts: Apple should advertise Mac OS X Tiger on television and in movie theaters – April 29, 2005
Mac fans line up for new operating system as passberby asks ‘what is a tiger?’ – April 29, 2005
Apple posts QuickTime movies of Mac OS X Tiger features in action – April 13, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple advertise Mac OS X on TV? – April 12, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple show its patented Mac OS X ‘Genie Effect’ in TV ads? – October 07, 2004
Top Ten things Apple needs to show the world about Macintosh – July 30, 2003
Apple should hold ‘The $1,000,000 Apple Macintosh Ad Contest’ – July 24, 2003
Apple posts new Power Mac G5 TV commerical online – July 17, 2003
They should hold a contest to see who can come up with the best 30 or 60 second spot.
MDN: … television ads that show Macs doing things that would surprise and interest average personal computer users, instead of featuring a Mac user being blown through the walls of his home …
I couldn’t agree more. And, Jimbo’s contest suggestion is great.
MW: (shall) — We shall see what appears on TV.
Hey, maybe they should have a contest to see who can come up with the best ad? (yes, that’s sarcasm for those of you who are deficient in detecting such things)
Being blown through the walls of your house does not qualify as surprising and interesting?
fanboy: not at all as the average Windozer would see that and react: “Jeez, saw that? Apple computers may explode. Are all that crazy in Cupertino? Who right in his mind would buy a computer that could do that. It is already terrible when my PC motherboard burned, imaging having a computer that could explode. No way, to Apple in this house”
See, it is truly Windozers who think differently!
Listen, listen to me. All Apple needs to do is show that footage of Gates at CES and his wonderful Windows choking on the difficult task of . . . starting up! Yeh-hehessssss. I mean, I haven’t seen a choke job that big since the 2004 Yankees! Hey, I keed. I keed losers everywhere.
Like Gates.
My thought is that Apple has not come up with a compelling ad for the Macintosh since….1984 or so. I know that it’s not Apple that comes up with the ad, it’s their agency (Chiat/Day?). Whoever does it, they need to understand that a cool, hip ad will probably not sell a computer. It’ll sell an iPod, but not a Mac. They need to understand that if they create a 30 or 60 second ad that shows the power of the Mac OS and the power of the Mac only iLife suite, that’s the way to sell.
I would suggest that the best way to do this would be to have a series of ads. Have one or 2 ads that show the power of Tiger. Have an ad that shows iPhoto & iMovie. Have each ad mention something from the other ads, so that if a person sees all the ads, they see that they all integrate, from the Address Book to Spotlight to iChat. Every ad should mention that all of this stuff is integrated seamlessly, as well as other key phrases to drill the idea home.
Examples that they should mention would be things like “no viruses”, “no popup ads”, worry free internet surfing, etc.
Maybe the ad agency needs the help of real people that see these issues. But the real big issue is that Apple needs to spend some serious dollars getting these ads on TV so often that everyone will see one within a week and will not be able to escape them.
Or maybe we needs that doofus Dell stoner kid instead. “Dude, yer gettin’ a Mac.”
Show an iTunes Search in action. The real thing. Then show a Spotlight search in action. The real thing again. Then maybe a few Exposé shots synched to a snappy beat to doll up the show. That oughta ’bout do it, imho.
My God it’s about time if this is true! They need to advertise the hell out of Mac minis, Tiger and iLife ’05 on TV to show the Windows lemmings what they’re missing out on.
Analyst: Apple “MAY” begin another heavy ad campaign highlighting Macs
MAY! MAY? I just don’get it.
Mayday–Mayday—Mayday
I like the idea of a series of adverts each showing various actions and features of Tiger. Each advert is linked by the integration between applications. Someone adding some pictures in iPhoto. Emailing those pictures to a friend. The friend viewing the images and making a slideshow with itunes music. etc. etc.
WE all know the ad is going to suck. Some artsy-fartsy ima switcher or the MOST! powerful computer in the world type thing that impresses no one. And then apple stops it after a week.
The best ad that would Apple would use a lot would be one with Steve in it. Steve likes to see himself and perhaps he can use his magic salespitch abilities to get others excited about Macs like he does the faithful at the Macworld conventions.
The analyst didn’t say that they would, he’s just assuming they might.’
BTW: Apple has shown ads of iPhoto (Baby Jack), iDVD (Elope) and iMovie in the past.
Steve Jobs refuses to be in any Apple commercial for any product or any reason. We’ve tried for years. He simply will not do it. And he gets very mad when it’s brought up, too. For some reason, offering him a lot of money doesn’t seem to work, either.
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Definitely need SJ explaining, excitedly, some of the Mac’s features. Why won’t SJ do it–does anyone know?
The last good (effective & memorable) Mac TV commercials were for the colorful new iMacs in the late 90’s. That was a good campaign and was complimented well with print ads. The had some decent ads for the original clamshell iBooks too. Print helps, but it doesn’t bring in the masses that TV does.
Apple needs to promote the new iMacs and the mini’s (after rev.2 upgrade is in place)in conjunction with Tiger on TV and in print…And, they need a catchy jingle or tag line to go with the message…Who doesn’t recognize the ‘Intel Inside’ jingle? Everyone remembers “Dude, your goin to Hell” even though they stopped those ads a couple years back.
Isn’t Carly Fiorina in charge of marketing now for Apple? hopefully she can do some cool ads like there were for HP
I would say, as a wannabe switcher, that the fundamental thing Apple needs to do is make people believe that the problems they have with computers are caused by those computers.
When people use Windows, often they experience things like fear, confusion, frustration, etc. However, they don’t know where to assign blame for these feelings, since in their experience all computers are like that.
So the message to get across is:
Confused when you use your computer? Maybe that’s because your computer is confusing. Try a Mac.
Afraid of your computer? Maybe that’s because your computer is scary. Try a Mac.
Did you never figure out how to use your computer? Maybe that’s because your computer doesn’t make sense. Try a Mac.
These emotions can be tied to specific features, like Spotlight or Unix.
what about a vommercial showing to the parents a child running a computer dad does not show porn .. whithout exterior softs … or a computer that you can open al kind of mail whithout getting viruses …. and dashboard ….. HOAAAARRRRR
This is why none of you guys are in advertising. To have a 30-second spot showing the features you’re talking about at the level you are talking about, would require …. a 3-minute ad.
People don’t have that kind of attention span anymore.
I would also say that the switcher ad campaign was more impactful than people give it credit for. To have real people talking to other real people about their problems on the PC and how switching to a Mac made their lives better, THAT is real good advertising. People identify with that. I know, I talk to those people. I’d like to see another round of that sans the goofy music they used in the background. It seemed doltish.
The other great ad Apple had was for the early version of iPhoto where the dad took the photos of the newborn at the hospital. THAT was a great ad.
i say, let the computer speak for itself… not the salesman… no one wants to hear a tired pitch… you can’t say that much in 30 seconds anyway.
“Maybe Apple really should hold ‘The $1,000,000 Apple Macintosh Ad Contest’ after all?”
Bad idea! Creatives don’t like this approach because it ultimately cheapens the relationship and therefore the understanding of the client. Here is an article that explains it better. It was taken from Creativelatitude.com
http://creativelatitude.com/downloads/logo_comp_prtst.pdf
If the new ad’s are like the old ones, Apple should just forget TV and instead spend the money on something that has more effect, like paving the Apple campus with chocolate. That would get some news write ups.
But if they do TV again for the mac, why not just run a scroll of excerpts from all the awesome reviews of tiger and the newest macs (with some macs in the background). That would be interesting to me.
“another heavy ad campaign”
HEAVY ? ? ?
1 ad in 1984. 0 ads in 1984-2000. 12 ads in 2001. 0 ads in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005.
Don’t blink, you may miss the heavy ad campaign.