The Spot: It’s a series of slow-motion vignettes in which people all across the globe take delight in their Apple products. A classroom full of Asian children staring at their iPads; a couple taking a gleeful selfie with their iPhone; a woman swaying on the subway, white earbuds affixed. Heart-tugging, plinky music sets the emotional ambiance. ‘This is our signature,’ asserts an announcer as the ad closes, “and it means everything.” The text of said signature—the phrase the brand slaps on everything it makes—now fades in: “Designed by Apple in California.”
“This ad falls into a tired category that I generally despise: the ‘family of man montage,'” Seth Stevenson writes for Slate. “Dreamy odes to the whole of humanity—and its propensity to buy our products. But that’s not all that was wrong with it. The ad just irked me from the get-go.”
“I wasn’t alone: The spot flopped. Surveys showed TV viewers rated it far below industry average,” Stevenson writes. “It fared dramatically worse than the typical high-scoring Apple ad. This attempt at stirring warm and fuzzy feelings just left folks cold.”
Stevenson writes, “Steve Jobs could somehow get away with terming his creations ‘magical.’ But in the Tim Cook era, with no revolutionary product launches to speak of, and none on the immediate horizon, the last thing Apple needs is a snotty, laurels-resting manifesto… ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Those who do not understand advertising/marketing campaigns should not attempt to critique advertising/marketing campaigns.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]