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advertising / apple / creative / iPad / iPhone / iPod / observatory / strategy — 17 Comments
1
Feb 12

Where have Apple’s headlines gone?

Driving around LA with colleagues recently, we were greeted by iPad billboards just about everywhere we went. All shared the same clever headline: “iPad 2.”

That got my merry band wondering: when was the last time an Apple billboard or poster actually had a headline. (At least a smart headline in the Apple tradition.)

Before the “iPad 2″ headline, the headline was “iPad.” The old iPod “silhouette” billboards had headlines that seemed like novels in comparison — they said “iPod + iTunes.”

I don’t mean this as an indictment. It’s simply an observation. In fact, if I were so disposed, I could rationalize both ways of thinking.

Say no to headlines!
Apple makes things simple. What could be simpler than a beautiful image and a product name? Brevity is its own form of cleverness, and a minimal number of words makes Apple stand out even more from its complicated competitors. Apple has transcended the need to explain things. If you really want more words, there are plenty of them at apple.com.

You’re blowing a major opportunity — repeatedly.
Steve Jobs himself once told me that every single ad is an opportunity to build the brand. Every time you fail to do that, it’s an opportunity lost. Now Apple is missing what its smart headlines used to add, and therefore not connecting at the same level. Those headlines are what originally gave Apple its public personality — they put Apple in a class by itself. Is it too much to ask for a few clever words?

So what gives? Has Apple lost the ability to craft a good headline? Or does it truly believe that an image and a product name is the ultimate act of advertising minimalism, and therefore a perfect representation of the Apple brand?

One argument against the latter is that the most recent images Apple has given us don’t exactly come from the adrenaline-pumping school of photography. The current iPad 2 billboard (above), in which we see a side view of Mr. Fingers picking up an iPad, is about as sleepy as it gets.

So what do you think?

Personally, I miss the little smile that used to come with seeing a great Apple ad. I get that the products are cool-looking, and the visual reminder is helpful. But those three or four words that used to make you think, “Damn, those guys are good” really did add another dimension to the ads.

Clearly Steve Jobs came to believe that the headlines were no longer necessary. It will be interesting to see how Apple’s creative work evolves now that others have full responsibility.

advertising / apple / apple store / creative / observatory — 64 Comments
25
Jan 12

Ron Johnson tries the Apple magic at JCP

When Ron Johnson left Apple several months ago, there was an audible gasp from the Apple community.

After all, Ron was one of Steve Jobs’s most important hires — the man who created the Apple Stores from scratch and led their amazing growth. It’s not like that was his first gig, either. Before that, Ron was the guy who gave Target its cool.

So it was a big blow to Apple when Ron left after 11 stellar years. And it was a big wow for JCPenney when Ron signed on as their new CEO.

For many, Ron’s move was a disconnect. Why would someone jump from the world’s coolest retail store to a stodgy department store chain?

Well, you’re about to find out. Today is the day that Ron, after less than three months on the job, unveils his plans to turn JCPenney into … well, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.

Ron’s big day starts out with a two-page ad in major papers (above). This is his Think different moment, where he puts forth the philosophy that will guide JCPenney under his leadership.

The details will be revealed during a series of presentations today in New York. But from firsthand experience, I can testify that when Ron talks about what makes a great shopping experience, you start believing.

Either a bit of that old distortion field rubbed off on him, or he really is a retail genius. I’m thinking the latter.

If it sounds like I’m a Ron fan, you’re absolutely right. Ron is a genuinely good guy with serious smarts and a ton of energy. I didn’t want to taint this story up front, but I’ve been sneaking about in the background helping Ron’s team — starting with today’s “In praise of fresh air” ad. (Design credit goes to Michael Rylander, who, by the way, runs a really cool design-centric blog.)

So now, after I’ve critiqued many other people’s ads here, I am ready to be judged. Just try to keep it civil, okay?

advertising / apple / apple news / mac / observatory — 2 Comments
17
Jan 12

The man who gave Apple its voice

Attention: Apple fans. While you weren’t looking, one of your biggest heroes just retired. Steve Hayden left his position as Vice Chairman of Ogilvy in NY.

If you have to ask “Steve who?” you’re missing an important part of Apple history.

Steve Hayden is the man who created the modern voice of Apple. He started out creating many classic Apple II ads, before any of us had a clue why we’d want or need a computer. Then he worked on the launch of Macintosh.

With just one ad, Steve qualified himself for the advertising Hall of Fame. He’s the guy who wrote 1984.

1984, of course, is widely regarded as the greatest commercial ever made. Not just for Apple, but for anyone. It’s the spot that turned the Super Bowl into an advertising showcase. It also had people lining up at stores the following day to see Macintosh for themselves (since they didn’t see it in the commercial itself).

But the launch of Macintosh was much bigger than 1984. There were other great ads, like Manuals, that showed the stark philosophical difference between Macs and PCs. And of course Steve is the guy behind “The computer for the rest of us,” one of the most perfect theme lines ever written.

To write like Steve, one must be incredibly smart and incredibly funny. He was (and is) the master of “intelligent wit.” You couldn’t stop yourself from reading every word he wrote, whether it was a one-paragraph ad or a 20-page magazine insert.

When I started writing Apple ads, I had it easy. The tone and personality had already been established — and Steve was the one who did the establishing. From practically nothing, he created a personality for the young Apple.

Every writer who has created an Apple ad since is following in Steve’s footsteps. That intelligent wit is alive and well today in Apple’s TV ads, print ads, billboards, in-store posters, even its manuals.

Shockingly, Steve discovered that there was life after Apple. He moved back to the east coast to take on the marketing responsibilities for IBM at Ogilvy NY, and did remarkable things for that brand for over 15 years.

Those are the big things for which Steve will always be admired. He also did one vastly smaller thing that I will forever appreciate. He hired me. Despite the fact that I had done little to prove myself worthy, Steve thought it made sense to sign me up. Either that, or he desperately needed a body and figured I couldn’t screw things up too badly.

To this day, when people ask me who my favorite advertising writer is, my instant answer is “Steve Hayden.” Honestly, I never had the urge to write like David Ogilvy or the standard industry legends. I just wanted to write like Steve.

There’s one more thing that makes Steve’s career worth celebrating. On top of all his business accomplishments, he’s a genuine human being too. He always supported those who worked for him and never took credit for their work. There are way too few Steve Haydens in this world.

By no means have you heard the last of Steve. Personally, I’m hoping that he writes a few books. He could tell some amazing stories about the birth of Macintosh. (He’s already written some mesmerizing articles about those days, including this one about the creation of the 1984 commercial.)

The only downside is that if Steve writes a book, you’ll have to finish it in one sitting. Hard to imagine you’ll be able to put it down.

advertising / creative / observatory — 7 Comments
12
Jan 12

DirecTV: firing laser shots at cable

Every so often, someone steps up and demonstrates one of the more amazing things about advertising: you don’t have to say a lot to say a lot.

While many companies stuff their ads with reasons to choose their products (the “more is more” school of thought), DirecTV goes a simpler route. They take one idea and turn it into something people will watch. And pass around. And talk about.

The above ad is part of DirecTV’s latest effort to woo customers from the cable companies. As far as I can tell, it’s one of three ads in this campaign. Each ad starts with one simple reason why cable companies are bad, then creates an absurd cascade of events that “logically” follow, leading to the ultimate disastrous result — which, of course, you can avoid if you simply upgrade to DirecTV.

This makes each ad about 90% fun and 10% message. But the wise know that this is a perfectly acceptable ratio — as long as the 90% serves to help viewers better remember the 10%.

The truth is, we already know how the cable companies work, and the general feeling is not positive. They’re all lumped together in the public mind. We don’t need a whole lot of additional information. DirecTV’s campaign exists simply to let us know there’s a more-than-viable alternative.

With three commercials, the entire campaign says only three things about DirecTV: it’s cheaper than cable, it won’t put you on hold like the cable companies, and it will give you a more reliable signal. Pretty smart.

That being said, DirecTV has a pretty big hill to climb. I’d be curious to know how successful this effort is.

See the other two ads here and here.

(Kudos to the creative team at Grey Advertising.)

advertising / apple / creative / iPhone / observatory — 2 Comments
19
Dec 11

Santa gets his Siri on

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. A holiday commercial from Apple. It’s a heartwarming time of year.

While the Mac vs. PC animated holiday ads always added a unique twist to that campaign, these days Apple has to dig a little deeper.

Fortunately they have Siri to play with, and it makes for a cheerful, happy holiday spot.

Love the voice they’ve given Santa (even if his little laugh doesn’t seem to be quite in sync with his cookie-chewing mouth). And the end joke is as charming as they get —  very much in the spirit of the humor Siri normally displays.

The only thing I wondered about was the timing. Running a holiday spot one week before the holiday seemed like it was cutting things a bit close. Seems like Santa could have enjoyed at least a two-week run, maybe more.

But then I noticed that in three years of Mac vs. PC holiday spots, they debuted on the 19th, 13th and 16th of December. So either the guys have been consistently late in the production department, or this is the way Apple likes to roll.

And the truth is, the short run makes these spots feel even more special, so it’s all good. And I’ll bet more than a few last-minute shoppers start seeing visions of iPad dancing in their heads.

advertising / android / apple / creative / observatory / strategy — 7 Comments
29
Nov 11

Ads: Apple’s unchallenged monopoly

Many observers credit Apple’s marketing for its astronomical success.

Few, however, credit Apple’s competitors for lending a hand.

It’s because the Android-makers keep churning out technology-centric ads that Apple continues to hold a monopoly on human-centric ads — which are often the most powerful of all.

The above commercial for the Samsung Galaxy IIS phone is just the latest example. It gets points for creativity. It’s fun to poke fun at Apple. But once the fun is over, its message is 100% technology — bigger screen, 4G speed — and 0% human benefit.

If Apple were to to adopt its competitors’ colder approach, a typical iPhone 4S ad would simply say “Now with triple-lens 8-megapixel camera and intelligent assistant.”

It’s not hard to understand how this advertising imbalance took shape — or why it will likely continue.

To do battle with iPhone, the Android-makers have to offer something better. So they engineer phones with measurable advantages — better cameras, bigger screens, faster processors, etc. But those advantages aren’t advantages unless they get advertised.

That’s why we often see futuristic ads with robots, lasers and lists of features, but little or no emotional context for those features.

Of course, there’s no reason why the Android-makers couldn’t create ads that show the human side of their technology advantages. They just don’t. Most likely because those who make the decisions (or the ads) are determined to do something different than Apple at all costs.

Even if that cost is giving Apple the gift of a monopoly.

advertising / apple / creative / iMac / observatory / steve jobs — 8 Comments
22
Nov 11

Steve Jobs talks PC vs. TV

Fortune blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt uncovered this gem recently — a segment of Steve Jobs’ appearance at the CAUSE 1998 Conference in Seattle.

The video quality is terrible, and the black turtleneck plays second fiddle to a shirt. But the clip is interesting on a few levels.

First, Steve gives one of his more animated performances. At certain points, it’s almost as if he’s trying out a comedy act — and the audience does its part, sounding much like a laugh track. The speech does have substance though. In it, Steve puts television in its place. “TV turns your brain off, PCs turn your brain on,” he says.

Few people would know this, but Steve didn’t exactly pull that thought out of mid-air. He was actually re-purposing the script from an iMac campaign that never saw the light of day.

Right after we signed Jeff Goldblum, we shot a number of iMac commercials in which Jeff repeatedly drove home the point that iMac was for turning your brain on, while TV was for turning your brain off. In one spot, Jeff walked a path littered with old TVs as he spoke. In another, he sat with a bunch of children on the floor, all gathered around an iMac. The theme of the campaign was “iMac. It’s not TV.”

Why did the ads never run? In the end, they just weren’t good enough. Fortunately, on our last shooting day, when we were beginning to feel like we might need a Plan B, we wrote a quick script and shot a test spot featuring Jeff speaking directly to the camera. It worked great. With Steve’s enthusiastic approval, we grabbed a new director and shot the Jeff Goldblum spots that ultimately did run.

I was unaware that Steve had ever used the “brain on, brain off” argument publicly until I saw this video. I’m glad he was able to find a good use for it — especially since it cost him a pretty good chunk of cash.

 

advertising / creative / observatory — 4 Comments
8
Nov 11

Ad pollution and the fall of civilization

Well, maybe the situation isn’t quite that dire.

But I’m often reminded of my earlier days in advertising, when my mentors talked about our profession’s responsibility not to pollute the environment just to make our clients a few extra bucks.

There’s no question that you can put ads pretty much anywhere. The question is, should you.

My example of the day is the CNN home page. Above is what it looked like a week or so ago. (Click if you’d like to see it in all its glory.)

This is what’s known as “taking over a page.” Some consider it a fantastic way to get attention in this overcrowded world. Others consider it ad pollution.

In a case like this, Capital One pays CNN extra to achieve “maximum impact.” They get a banner under the masthead, a full column on the right and left side, a square space that’s equal to the headline images, and — for good measure — a tiny little ad on the bottom.

And, because we’re so thick, they take special care to blast the exact same message in four different places. It would be a shame if you missed it.

What CNN looks like on a good day

I actually don’t have anything against page takeovers. Some companies consider it a creative challenge, doing it with style and class. Apple broke new ground with Mac vs. PC ads that featured some creative interaction between different parts of the page.

Capital One has successfully polluted this page, but they couldn’t have committed their crime without an accomplice. CNN owns the real estate. They’re the ones who took the cash and looked the other way as their new tenant junked up the place. Not the most sterling example of brand stewardship.

So watch it, CNN. Whatever you make in additional revenue, you’re giving back in brand degradation.

And you, Capital One: Yikes, could you try something a little more creative next time? Entertaining always trumps annoying.

advertising / apple / creative / iPhone / observatory / technology — 3 Comments
1
Nov 11

Invasion of the iPhone 4S ads

I love the smell of fresh ads in the morning.

Apple has now added not one, not two, but three new ads to the iPhone 4S campaign. For we who like our entertainment in 30-second spurts, this is good news indeed.

As we have come to expect, each of these new ads is a clear, straightforward demo. But that’s okay, because what’s being demoed is mostly eye-opening stuff. Here are all three new spots with a mini-review of each.

Snow Today:

Of the three, this is the one that’s most similar to the 4S ad that debuted last week, right down to a cute kid interacting with Siri. But the range of Siri’s abilities is so wide, we see a whole new batch of interesting uses. One big difference between this ad and the first is that we actually hear a lot from Siri. So much for my theory that they’re downplaying the robotic voice. But it’s interesting how the synthetic voicing of Siri becomes almost charming thanks to the human responses programmed into her.

iCloud:

With this ad, Apple makes a very sneaky (in a good way) move to simplify its story. Technically, iCloud isn’t an iPhone thing. It’s an everything thing. It’s equally cool on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Change or add something to any one of these devices or computers, and it shows up on the others. But to make it even easier to appreciate, everything we see here ties back to iPhone. It all adds up to “iCloud — on the most amazing iPhone yet.” (Never mind that you can enjoy all this iCloud goodness on your old iPhone 4 as well.)

Camera:

This one strays a little from Apple’s standard, in that it actually starts by touting technical specs — “with 8 megapixels and advanced optics.” No doubt that’s because iPhone’s camera has been lagging behind its competitors. Since the camera is the least remarkable aspect of the 4S, a spot devoted to this feature can’t possibly be as compelling as a spot devoted to Siri. Still, people take tons of photos on their phones, and it needs to be part of the mix.

I’m sure that someone, somewhere, is still arguing that iPhone 4S offers only minor improvements over iPhone 4. Likewise, some analysts are no doubt sticking to their story that Apple’s most recent earnings report was a let-down. (Even though record sales of the 4S prove that many were simply waiting for the new model.)

These new spots should do a good job of erasing the doubts — while they stir up some good, old-fashioned iPhone lust.

advertising / apple / apple news / iPhone / observatory / strategy — 1 Comment
25
Oct 11

Siri makes her TV debut

Welcome to Steve Jobs Authorized Biography Week. Shame on me for not writing about the Isaacson book today — but hey, that thing is long. Meet me back here in a few days.

For now, let’s talk Siri, which is shaping up to be a giant leap for such a “disappointing” iPhone 4S.

What better way to celebrate a giant leap than with a TV commercial. And the verdict is…

Excellent.

Like Siri, this spot feels new. The music track has a sense of magic. What we see is simply a sequence of different people interacting with Siri in different ways. It may be an obvious way of demoing Siri, but when you have an extraordinary feature, obvious is your best friend.

Siri comes off like the practical application of the technology we’ve seen forever in movies like 2001 and Star Trek. (With slightly better results than 2001.) It feels like the cast is talking to a person rather than a computer, which of course is the whole point of Siri — and what makes it such an “on-brand” technology for Apple.

There are nice touches in the writing that add to the humanity. Like “How do I tie a bow tie again?” Siri doesn’t particularly care about the “again” part, but that’s how people talk. In the last clip, we get more of a lament than a question or command: “I’m locked out of the house.” Siri seems almost empathetic.

If Siri is a world-changing feature, Apple could have run a grand manifesto ad to boldly proclaim the beginning of a new age. Instead, they went the quieter route, demonstrating how Siri fits into our lives. We hear Siri speak only once — which is another part of the crafting, as too much of Siri’s voice would only draw attention to one of her weaker areas.

So congrats to Apple and Chiat for a job well done.

Anything to quibble over? One small thing. In a spot where “human and natural” is the theme, the shots of Mr. Hand holding an iPhone (first and last scenes) feel unnatural — because they are lifeless still images of a hand rather than film. I’m sure this makes it easier to add the screens in post production, but surely the technology exists to do the same with real film. I think I know what Siri would say:

“I’ve found three digital effects studios fairly close to you.”

Conan O’Brien has already done his version of this commercial. See that here.

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