“Repeat after me: ‘The sky is not falling. The sky is not falling,'” Ken Segall blogs for Ken Segall’s Observatory. “I know it’s hard to say after viewing the new batch of Mac ads that debuted on the Olympics. I’m still in a bit of shock myself.”
“Sure, Apple has had a low point or two in its advertising past — but its low points are usually higher than most advertisers’ high points,” Segall writes. “This is different. These ads are causing a widespread gagging response, and deservedly so. I honestly can’t remember a single Apple campaign that’s been received so poorly.”
Segall writes, “This thing is so upsetting, it has me talking to myself: ‘Ken, you’re missing the obvious. Clearly these ads are targeted at first-timers, not for you.’ That’s a seemingly logical defense. It’s also a horrible one. How many great campaigns have you seen that appeal to one target group, but turn off everyone else? There’s no excuse for a campaign like that. Apple’s momentum is fueled by the enthusiasm of its core customers. The last thing it wants is to win new customers at the cost of looking ridiculous to its enthusiastic supporters.”
Much more in the full article here.
Related article:
Apple debuts three new Mac ads: ‘Basically,’ ‘Labor Day,’ and ‘Mayday’ (with video) – July 29, 2012
Steve Jobs would have NEVER let these ads see the light of day. Of that, I am certain. Virtually all of Apple’s past ads – during Steve – were clever, polished and entertaining – first class. These are not. I hope Apple will can these ads asap.
Fuck your article, Bitch.
A handful of circle jerking tech bloggers do not count as a widespread anything, except maybe as an indication of the widespread narcissism of tech bloggers.
Speaking of Johann and Brodie, Apple should have used a variation of that in these commercials.
On the plane, the guy with the Mac is having problems sending his presentation, so a 9 year old sitting in the seat behind him, blindly says “Click on Share, then choose email”. Then you see the kid reviewing his iMovie Trailer of their vacation. A passenger behind him says “You did that yourself?!” The kid replies, “No, my 2 year old sister [sitting next to him] helped.”
I would have used “blithely” instead of “blindly”, but hey, who’s nitpicking?
Oh. I am. Sorry.
Anyway, I like your ideas here.
Good concepts. And brief. Maybe 15 second spots at the most. Well done, aryugaetu.
I’ll agree you with. My only problems with the new ads were both the implication that Genius Bar employees are available wherever/whenever and that it takes a Genius to get people to be successful on their Macs. Now if Tim Cook decides that Geniuses should be out-and-about rather than behind the counter of the store, then I’ll retract my first objection.
For the record I found them funny and refreshing departure from the now oft-copied style of old (white background, jingle, etc.) The baby one didn’t really do anything for me. But I wasn’t gagging at it either.
Nope, that would be massively insulting and condescending towards the audience by implying that they are below the computer literacy levels of a 9 and 2 year old, respectively.
What was that you were saying about Advertising 101? =D
They seem kind of lame to me but what do I know about advertising?
Don’t care for the ads or the actor. They seem cheesy and the actor unauthentic.
Bad, horrible, embarrassing. I expect more from apple. I expect something hip and cool. Apple has lost its edge.
These are unimaginative. I’d rather have them show OS X only software and how simple it is, show the beauty of mountain lion, show the OS upgrade process and how simple it is, then use the tag..”only on a Mac”
something hip and cool??
try and say that to creatives, and they will ask you what is for you “hip and cool”. that’s dumb
Well, having viewed the ads, they are obviously aimed at an uneducated, perhaps not-terribly-bright, audience. Um… Windows users?
They make me cringe – quite simply pants.
– or is the idea to try and get Samsung to copy them – which would make them even worse !!
If you make great products, you have this luxury of making bad ad. If people talk about this ads, it’s good enough. If the badness goes viral, it even better.
LINUX is looking better and better these days.
For someone whose comments are usually level-headed, TH, I’m surprised at this one. Unless you’re being sarcastic? The notion that unspectacular TV ads would impact your use of the products is pretty thin.
Yeah, those new LINUX commercials rock.
I am disappointed – these aids might have a new target audience but they lost their soul in the process… Where is the fun, witty, unique approach to messaging? This reminds me of Mojave, step it up apple!
They sort look and feel like Dell commercials, especially the dweeby Genius.
“Gagging response” seems too harsh considering what unadulterated crap most commercials are; but it’s still a double fail for Apple and their advertising agency.
While everyone seems to absolutely hate or love these ads, my first thought in seeing them was:
Hey, Apple employees are now allowed to wear their Apple t-shirts outside of Apple Stores.
But I’m an engineer so my thought-processing is different.
Much ado about nothing.
I liked them. Funny and poked fun at pos windows!
I was in advertising.
In the end of the day the success of a sales ad for a company is how much product it sells.
A successful ad is not like Seagull saying “award wining” or not causing a “gagging response” from pundits or handful of tech geeks.
a LOT of award winning ads (ads which arty farty judges give awards too) were failures as sales tools (go thumb through ad design award journals from years back and see the ads for no longer existing – i.e bankrupt – companies).
some ads like the classic “muscle building ‘the dude Kick sand in my Face’ “ads in the back of comic books sold bonks of product $$$ but never won awards and probably caused ‘widespread gagging response’.
I’m not offering here my opinion of whether the new ads are good or bad but I’m saying at the end of the day before we judge let’s wait for the SALES numbers.
Seagall says : “I present Exhibit A: the now-legendary Mac vs. PC campaign, which delivered 66 fantastic ads over a period of four years.”
my take : although Mac has got better sales growth rates than PCs for years, worldwide Mac market share (in spite of Vista, windows malware and general suckiness of Windows, in spite of iPod, iPhone etc HALO effect) is still around 5%.
So in SALES was those award winning ads so great? in my opinion GREAT ADS (ads that actually SELL ) would have given Macs to rise to 20-30% market share now (not sitting at 5%).
(incidentally a LOT of PC people — i.e new customers — HATED those Mac PC guy ads and thought apple was arrogant.)
It’s like a Micosoft ad, can’t think of a worse insult
Really? I think they are good. Although I am not an official expert I have those same conversations with family and friends. Not as clever as other ads but not bad either.
The ads are straight up weaksauce. But i agree they are better than the 20lbs of dead skin mattresses ads.
No one has mentioned “adorable”….. and I find them all to be so…. not understanding the backlash… folks respond to such.
I watched them all.
I just threw up, in my mouth, a little.
I’m going to say this one more time so everybody pay attention and then we can move on. “Apple is a mobile device company.” – Steve Jobs.
Apple doesn’t care about its core, faithful real computer customers. If we don’t convert to the minimalist world of iOS, then we have but one choice – to see if MSoft has figured out anything since we last checked. I doubt it. but it’s all that is left for us.
Apple wants billions from the mass market of phones, pads, and pods. That’s it. That’s what these ads say and that’s what Apple intended them to say.
Completely agree. These ads are worthy of windoze. Definitely not Mac material!
these ads are silly and derivative of the Dell guy and Apple’s previous Mac vs. PC ads – no real imagination at work here
they should play to their strengths = stop talking down to consumers – Apple if you are listening, don’t talk down to your customers or prospective customers –
but I don’t think they hurt Apple – they are just super silly
the one with the baby is especially bad in my opinion