Mac, iPhone, and iPad user Rush Limbaugh today discussed Apple’s recent TV ads and how they scored poorly in a survey by a firm, Ace Metrix, which counts Apple’s slavish copier, Samsung, among its clients.
The 3-hour Rush Limbaugh Show airs daily on a network of approximately 590 AM and FM affiliate stations. The program is also broadcast worldwide on the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Network. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that Rush Limbaugh was the most trusted news personality in the nation.
From the live transcript:
Put aside for the moment, if you will, folks, that I’m an Apple guy. I like their products. Put that aside for a moment. Apple is running an ad. You might have seen it. It’s called, “Our Signature.” I have the ad, the audio of the ad. It’s a very visual ad. It is still shots of people using Apple products, and there’s some narration to it. Not a lot. They’re economic with the words, and of course there’s a music bed. I want to play it for you, and then try to walk you through the ad in the tech media and the advertising community.
Now keep in mind that Apple’s stock price has plummeted from just last year at $705, to now under $400. Their profits are still through the roof. Everything about them is going well; they just haven’t had a new product in a few months. There’s a lot going on here that is… I mean, it’s directly relatable to politics and I want to try to make that connection here. So set aside what you think about Apple. You don’t like them because they’re a bunch of Silicon Valley weenies and leftists. Put that aside. Here’s a teachable moment here. Here is the Apple ad called “Our Signature.”
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Earlier this week, a story hit the tech media and the advertising media that only 26% of people who see the and like it, that it’s a dud, that the ad is a dismal failure. And only 26%of the American people who see the ad like it.
The stories also predicted that Apple will have to pull this ad very soon because people really don’t like it, that it is really hurting Apple. Two days after I saw the first story, I then learned that the company that did the survey of people taking their opinions is the advertising agency for Samsung. Ace Metrix. They do the ads for Samsung. They do the marketing for Samsung. They are part of the primary rivalry to Apple, Samsung, in the mobile phone business… None of the stories, even now, include the fact that the company that does the survey is in the employ of Samsung. From the article on this in Advertising Age: “Since May, Samsung has had eight ads that scored an average of over 600, according to Ace Metrix. Apple’s new ad — which calls the words ‘Designed in California’ ‘our signature and it means everything’ — scored 528 versus the industry average of 603.”
So not only do only 26% of people who see the ad like it, it’s scoring way below the industry average in all ads. But nobody is telling anybody that the company doing this works for Samsung, is hired by Samsung… It may be part of a campaign by an Apple competitor to actually have a successful Apple ad pulled.
By the way, that’s all fair and fine and dandy with me. Capitalism is it. This is the nature of competition. I don’t want to be misunderstood. I’m not bellyaching or whining or moaning for Apple. If Samsung can pull this off, more power to them. But what does it require? It requires a gullible, un-skeptical, totally accepting public. Okay, now let’s take it to politics. I submit to you that the same thing happens to the Republican Party every day. In the news media, they’re reported to what?
Hate gays, hate women, hate blacks, hate this, hate that. They’re racist, sexist, bigot homophobes. Who is reporting this? Polling units that are owned and operated by partisan Democrats. Who sees these polls? Low-information voters, people who are not skeptical at all. They don’t dig deep. They don’t care that the Washington Post runs its own poll. They don’t know who Gallup is. They just see this stuff and automatically eat it up and they believe it.
But yet the same kind of sophisticated people who are able to understand that about politics themselves are fooled by the same thing happening to Apple.
Much more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Businessweek says Apple’s TV Ads ‘flop’ based on survey from Ace Metrix – which counts Samsung as a client – June 28, 2013
Rush Limbaugh: ‘High-tech lynching: Senate attempts to crucify Apple’ – May 21, 2013
Rush Limbaugh calls MacDailyNews ‘fabulous’ as he lists his favorite Apple blogs – March 22, 2013
Rush Limbaugh: Apple products create jobs in America – October 18, 2012
Rush Limbaugh: Why does a lover of freedom like me love a ‘restrictive’ company like Apple? – July 27, 2012
Rush Limbaugh: Don’t worry about Apple’s results, just wait – July 25, 2012
Rush Limbaugh: Okay, Apple, where’s my Mac Pro with Thunderbolt? – June 12, 2012
Rush Limbaugh reviews new Apple iPad: ‘It is amazing, it really is; and we’re giving one away each day’ – March 20, 2012
Rush Limbaugh: My first home computer was an Apple IIc; then every top-of-the-line Mac desktop since – February 24, 2012
Rush Limbaugh: The New York Times has turned on Apple; they wouldn’t do this if Steve Jobs was alive – February 1, 2012
Rush Limbaugh on Steve Jobs potentially being named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year – November 18, 2011
Rush Limbaugh: Steve Jobs epitomized American exceptionalism – October 6, 2011
Rush Limbaugh: This is like Christmas Eve; I can’t wait for Apple’s ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event! – October 3, 2011
Rush Limbaugh: On the brilliance of Steve Jobs – September 1, 2011
Samsung: copied the best which is iPhone so you can make billion-of-dollars. Don’t copy Nokia or Blackberry–>> death beats. 🙂
I honestly do not care for Rush and don’t really care to explain why, as it would take me forever. However, he makes a good point here. Its really a damn shame that so many people actually believe the crap they read but what really pisses me off the most is that these morons even get their garbage published in the first place. Example, the ridiculous article written the other day by Forbes Writer Scott Davis. Apple will continue to do what they have been doing for years now and hopefully will not get caught up in the kind of crap that Slimesung pulls. I seriously doubt they ever will. We all miss you Steve. RIP.
Leave to MDN to turn a piece about Ace Metrix into a story about Rush Limbaugh. (MDM sure knows who it’s readers [commenters] are).
It’s funny though; I tried to submit this actual story of Ace Metrix (not Rush’s take on it) to a couple other Apple-centric sites. Mostly via the guy who actually broke the story, John Moltz’s site.
http://verynicewebsite.net/2013/06/money-well-spent/
but nobody was interested.
I read (part of) Limbaugh’s take on it yesterday.
Hey, the more Apple fans the better, but this guy has serious (drug related?) brain damage. His rant is, literally, incoherent. I mean, when you are reading what he’s is saying, he is already off the rails (like some schizophrenic street person), and then you get to his callers who are even worse, and they pull him off the rails even further; and he actually goes with it! It’s like reading a transcript from a scene in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”.
What do you mean there’s nothing wrong with this?
Those are lies, made up numbers, this should be punishable.
getting back on point for a minute … one of the main reasons the ad was not liked is because it just showed sweet shots of users using products, which is what anyone without anything to say about their product does … it’s a pedestrian approach.
Apple ads used to be much more informative and told a better story about their products. just look back to the ‘mac v pc’ with john hodgman … funny, engaging and informative.
now look at the new ads … people zoning out in various locations, mesmerized by the shiny toy in front of them. vapid is the word that comes to mind …
and, although i am no Limbaugh fan, he’s right. Apple is suffering because of poor new product introductions. the 5S phone, arguably the newest offering, is hardly mouth watering and the mini-pad is just a reduced clone of the ground breaking iPad … Apple will have much more loss of faith amongst the true believers if they don’t do what they do best : innovate. who saw the iPod coming? or the iMac? or iPad? do another like that and then they’ll have something to talk about … till then? just pictures of people looking at shiny toys …