Blog | Ken Segall

What happened to Jony’s voice?

11/5/18

Ben Franklin said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Until last week, I would have added “Jony Ive product videos” to that list.

Apple had a formula for these videos and it wasn’t about to budge—beauty shots and engineering animations, accompanied by Jony’s intelligently philosophical voice.

It’s gone on for so many years, I’ve actually lost count.

It’s not like the videos didn’t work. Apple sales certainly never suffered. It’s just felt odd that a company that puts creativity front and center would become so formulaic.

But all that changed last week when Apple unveiled two new videos—for MacBook Air and iPad Pro—and we didn’t hear a peep from Jony. I’m still recovering from the shock.

Thank the marketing gods for giving Apple a much-deserved kick in the butt. Continue reading…

Apple’s disturbing confession

10/29/18

My bubble has officially been burst.

Though I’ve had issues with iPhone naming for years, I’ve always assumed there was an underlying strategy, enigmatic as it might be.

Apparently I was giving Apple too much credit.

When Phil Schiller sat down with Engadget recently, he casually confessed that the S and the R have no real meaning. They’re just letters.

This news doesn’t exactly collapse the space-time continuum. However, it does rattle my personal belief system. Let me explain—Continue reading…

iPhone naming: 1 step forward, 4 steps back

09/26/18

Every September, I eagerly await the unveiling of the new iPhones. I also feel a sense of dread, wondering what Apple is going to call them.

That’s because, when it comes to iPhone naming, Apple seems to wage a war against common sense.

Last year’s models set new standards for complexity. We had an 8, 8 Plus, X and SE. That’s two numbers, one Roman numeral, one paring of letters, plus an odd numerical gap between 8 and 10. Or, in Apple lingo, between 8 and X.

It’s hard to imagine how a family of only four products could end up with such needlessly complicated names—especially coming from the company that wrote the book on simplicity.

So how do the iPhone names look in 2018?Continue reading…

Battle of the insurance jingles

08/10/18

Okay, Farmers. You’ve enjoyed your monopoly on silly insurance ad jingles long enough. This is war!

Liberty Mutual has now marched into the arena, armed with a jingle even more annoying than yours. Surrender now, or you will see no mercy.

What Liberty Mutual did is actually pretty rare in this business. After running an ad campaign for at least a couple of years, they decided to “enhance” it with a new jingle at the end—a veritable body blow to competitors taken from the Classic Book of Advertising, circa 1964.

I’m painfully aware of how hard it is to come up with smart strategies and creative executions. I also know how many meetings it takes to sell a creative idea to people who may not see what you see.

That said, I can’t explain how ideas that deserve a quick and merciful death survive a process that includes multiple checkpoints at both the agency and client. The best I can do is imagine how the final meeting went…Continue reading…

Ron Johnson was right about JCPenney

06/11/18

The latest painful chapter in the JCPenney saga has now been written.

CEO Marvin Ellison resigned a couple of weeks back—with the company’s stock price down to a mere $2.43. That’s a particularly brutal number, considering that in 2007 a share of JCP went for $85.

Technically, this plummet was co-authored by three CEOs serving four terms—Marvin Ellison, Ron Johnson and two stints by Myron Ullman.

By numbers alone, it’s hard to tell who was worse. The stock plunged 65% under Ullman (Act I), 54% under Johnson, 58% under Ullman (Act II) and 66% under Ellison.

So I was surprised that Ellison received the praise of many writers reporting his resignation. “He helped turn around J.C. Penney,” said The Street. In what universe that happened may never be known.

Not only do the writers let Ellison off the hook, they seem to rally under a common theme: it’s all Ron Johnson’s fault. After all, Ron was in and out in less than two years, and the stock was decimated during his reign.

However, this narrative ignores two major facts. First, JCP had already lost more than half its value before Johnson took the reins. Second, Ullman and Ellison succeeded only in driving JCP further into the ground.

The truth is, Johnson’s vision was correct and necessary. History has now proven that JCP was (and is) doomed without a radical plan for reinvention.

The company committed the classic sin of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.Continue reading…

Animal instinct: the low end of advertising

05/28/18

In the ad biz, we love to celebrate the best of the best.

What about the other ads? The not-so-fresh. The ones we see every day. Those that boldly go where everyone has been before. Don’t they deserve a little attention too?

Sadly, we can’t examine them all. So, in the interest of time, descend with me now into one small corner of this dark world: a place where animals do the selling.

Animal characters have existed since the dawn of advertising. At the risk of oversimplifying, these ads get produced because (a) the goal is winning people’s hearts, (b) people have a heart for animals, and (c) … logic!

In addition, animal characters come with excellent perks. They don’t need to be coddled on the set, they don’t squeeze you at contract time and they can’t be charged with unsavory crimes off-camera.
Continue reading…

Touchless Control and the lessons of history

04/10/18

Ah, the endless quest for new iPhone features. Last week, we learned of the looming possibility of curved screens and Touchless Control.

Of course it’s silly to analyze features that are years away, if they ever come to exist at all. But what kind of technology enthusiasts would we be if we didn’t talk about our hopes, dreams and fears? This is far cheaper than professional counseling.

It can often be useful to put new ideas in context of old ones.

Curved glass? Yeah, okay. I trust Apple when it comes to hardware design. Touchless Control? Sorry to say, I’m trusting Apple a bit less in the area of usability these days.

The idea of Touchless Control sparked a few neurons that had been tucked away in the rarely-visited iPod section of my brain.Continue reading…

Apple’s case of dance fever

03/8/18

It’s an interesting phenomenon—Apple runs an ad and the internet lights up with comment and commentary. (Points finger at self.)

Not sure many people appreciate how unusual this is. Ads from Dell or HP come and go, and passions rarely flare up. I suppose this is why so many people follow Apple—friend or foe, we actually care what it does.

The Apple story of the week is the new HomePod ad. Four minutes in length, I’m not sure you can call it an ad, but it’s out there and getting mostly positive reactions. Directed by Spike Jonze, psychedelic expanding sets, cool music, emotional dance … what’s not to like?

Oh no. Please don’t tell me you’re going to dump on this ad.

It’s not that I don’t like it. I think it’s beautifully produced, like all Apple ads. But it does make me feel like I’ve been here before. Or, more accurately, that I’ve been here many times before. Like I’m stuck in an infinite loop of Apple dancing ads.Continue reading…

Think different, Take 2

01/23/18

Now that my website has been redesigned into the 21st century, I thought it would be fun to start off with a little cross-century creativity.

Back in 1997, when Steve Jobs introduced the Think different campaign at an internal Apple marketing meeting, he noted that people we honored in the campaign didn’t actually use Apple technology, and then quipped, “but they would have.”

Cue Michael Rylander, designer/art director who was part of the agency Apple creative team back in those days. Steve’s words inspired him to let some of those great people reach into the future to get their hands on some iconic Apple products. Time travel courtesy of Photoshop, of course.Continue reading…

iPhone X and the critics’ Festival Of Wrong

12/25/17

Getting Apple wrong is hardly anything new. Apple naysayers and wrongness share a rich and glorious history.

Remember, Apple failed when it created a computer that works with a mouse; when it left the floppy drive out of iMac; when it forgot how to innovate after iPhone; when it built a watch nobody wanted; when [your favorite fail here].

But history be damned. Following three years of physically unchanged iPhones, iPhone X was a target many critics couldn’t resist.

The result? We were treated to a veritable Festival Of Wrong, served up by countless critics in four distinct phases.Continue reading…