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Critics Blast Apple's Cheesy New Ad Campaign
theodp writes "BetaBeat reports that people are pretty much falling over themselves to mock Apple's cheesy new Genius ad campaign, using zingers like 'intellectually cheap,' 'cringe-inducing,' 'borderline smarmy,' and — perhaps the unkindest cut of all — Microsoft-worthy — to describe them. Apple's trilogy-of-terror ad lineup includes Mayday ('An Apple Genius shows a fellow passenger how easy it is to make great home movies with iMovie. All before the tray tables are returned to their upright position.'), Labor Day ('An Apple Genius shows a soon-to-be father all the amazing things he can make with iPhoto.'), and Basically ('An Apple Genius points out there are a lot of things that separate a Mac from an ordinary computer, like great apps that come built in.'). The Atlantic's Jordan Weissmann says Steve Jobs would be appalled by the new ads, which certainly don't fare well in a head-to-head comparison with Think Different."
They even got their ad campaign freely detailed on Slashdot and by all those different critics. Can't be more successful than that.
From the Think Different Ad: "They push the human race forward."
By litigating so that their competitors can't sell what may end up being superior products! Yeaaaaaaahhhhhh! Keep pushing the human race forward Apple!
which is totally what she said
This inevitably pops up everywhere, but I think it's more symptomatic of a lack of confidence in post-Jobs Apple, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy, than necessarily an independent assessment. Perceptions of Apple have been so closely tied to Jobs for years that evaluation of how smart decision are are strongly influenced by that. There are things that Apple could do today that will get people kvetching about "ugh, if only Steve Jobs were still here he'd never do that", but if Steve Jobs himself had done the identical thing 5 years ago, people would raise an eyebrow, maybe think it's weird, but give him the benefit of the doubt, assuming he knows what he's doing. Basically, people don't trust Apple knows what they're doing the way they trusted jobs, so even things Jobs would've done get that "if only Jobs..." treatment!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
GEICO and Progressive ad campaigns generate giggles, but they're being dumped because they actually don't generate any increase in revenue.
Personally I can't see how anyone thought it was a good move to label Apple technicians "Geniuses". If they were geniuses, they would be doing something useful.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
You big-ketchup shill. Everyone knows Rold Gold is the finest in tomato based confectionery condiments. NO BLOOD FOR KETCHUP!
It's insulting, as a male, to see a husband portrayed as a complete ditz; if they'd done it with a woman, there would have been hell to pay, or people wouldn't have thought it was funny. Look at the idiot man, everyone!
As a techie, I found the way the Genius acts to show someone who is practically codependent. They're not people - they're apparently robots who spend their entire lives wherever they are, serving as customer service agents?
Please help metamoderate.
Apple customers need help for even the simplest thing on their Apple computer.
Apple customers lack common sense.
Apple customers don't even know what an Apple computer is.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
If they are basically truthful, then they are improving on their record.
Isn't an ad campaign basically a self-measuring practice? Either their sales will go up, or they wont.
Half of the money spent on marketing is wasted. The problem is figuring out which half.
Enough about that, let's examine Apple's most famous ad, "1984". Read the text, while thinking (differently) about the kind of company that Apple is in 2012.
How ironic, eh? Apple has become the very thing that they despised, back then. One True Way of doing things, and if you don't like it, hit the highway.
I'm a late adopter, for very good reasons I won't go into here. I recently saw my first iPad in the wild, my new roomie has one. I had some cool Cajun mp3s he wanted, so I gave him my USB stick to transfer the files. I even GAVE him the actual CD that I purchased from the hand of the artist himself, to keep, as I didn't particularly care for the music and he loved it. Oops! The iPad doesn't have a USB port. He explained he had to do everything by iTunes. Bummer, eh?
Next, he was going for a new job, and wanted me to look over his contract. He sent me the .DOC file by email, and I annotated it using Libre Office's "CTRL-ALT-C comment" function. I highlighted the parts of the contract I thought should be changed, made my comments, and resent the file to him. Oops! Turns out, there's no free .DOC reader that will show those comments. His brother ended up loading the files onto his PC and sending him JPG screenshots. I'm sure if he wanted to pay $19.99, there would be some sort of solution to his problem. Again, a garden of pure ideology, secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths.
Jeez, the entire Apple motto, "Think Different", is a riff on IBM's motto, "Think". Let's all think differently and ignore the obvious grammatical error. Oof, how outdated! It's like how Texas A&M defines themselves by the rivalry to UT, and has no personality without it...now they're in different conferences. Awkward.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It is generating buzz. Bad or good, that is the goal of an ad campaign.
You don't want to generate buzz by destroying your hard-earned brand identity. Let's compare:
1) Old campaign "You can intuitively and effortlessly do cool things with our products."
2) New campaign "You will find yourself in tech emergencies while using our products, from which only a trained professional can save you (even though we used to tell you this only happened to customers of our competitor)."
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Also,
1) Old campaign "You will be cool and fashionable as an Apple user"
2) New campaign "Only annoying geeks are Apple genius"