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Apple Pulls 'Convince Your Parents to Get You a Mac' Ad From YouTube

It deserved the backlash it has received so far because Apple and the agency behind this seemingly forgot to appeal to their target audience.

Okay, get a Mac. FINE, but why not release it in short 30-60 second clips you can run over and over again? Remember the Justin Long "I'm a Mac" commercials? Those were perfect because they were short and straight to the point.

This should have been 7-14 ads to throw on TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook etc instead of this over produced campaign.
 
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Reactions: Jumpthesnark and winxmac
I was surprised to even see such a cringeworthy thing from Apple, much less not see much pushback here for it. Even for whatever brand is bad, much less Apple.
 
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Reactions: citysnaps
This reminds me of when I was a child and always printed out a "Pro List" like "here are 10 reasons why you should buy me the latest Siemens phone" and put it on my door for my parents to see every time they walked into my room. Makes me cringe about myself!
 
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TruthAboveAllElse said:
It's not offensive it's just awful.

Maybe a little gross. I have unfortunately known people who didn't want to use a windows laptop so bad they did not take college classes because that's the only computer their grandparents would give them. (Probably an excuse, not a real reason, but still...)
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They didn't deserve the privilege of laptop or education then..... or any other gift. They need to get a degree in horse dentistry.....
 
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Reactions: centauratlas
The essence of advertising is making people feel good about your product. The details hardly matter. Apple did this expertly for at least a decade. Every ad was outstanding. They can’t do it at all now. I think this reflects a deeper problem in leadership that reveals itself in other ways.
 
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Reactions: Jumpthesnark, Macbookey, Rokkus76 and 5 others
It could only be really good in a movie takeoff on the ad, in which the college-bound student convinces the parents, gets the Mac, then uses it to make another PowerPoint that they use to get hired by Apple and then the ads from Apple take a different direction. Did anyone ever see the movie Putney Swope?🍸😹
 

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DrJR said:
They didn't deserve the privilege of laptop or education then..... or any other gift. They need to get a degree in horse dentistry.....
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I don't think it has anything to do with deserving; I don't even know what it means to deserve something. They didn't get it because they refused it within the conditions of their reality. Perhaps their conditions changed, or perhaps they changed their mind. Or perhaps not. I don't talk to them any longer.

I simply think it is unfortunate to die on a hill of consumer preference. This is part of what makes me find a campaign like the one in the article distasteful.
 
julesme said:
Here's why the ad doesn't work: It features a shady salesman. The implication is that you have to be shady to convince someone to buy a Mac (which makes no sense given that Apple arguably makes the best laptops, with the highest quality hardware and OS). The tone of the ad is off base relative to the real-world value proposition of a Mac.

The "presentation" is reminiscent of other shady sales pitches, like selling timeshares or any disreputable door-to-door business of the past (expensive vacuums, magazine subscriptions, etc).

I understand it's trying to be funny (and I also found the comedian to be funny), but the tone and connotation of the ad don't align with Apple's brand. Don Draper would not have greenlit this.
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Agreed. It’s clever and in some parts funny, but it’s also crass, so ultimately off brand.
 
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Think they asked Apple Intelligence marketing advice here.

Buy your kid what he/she needs for college. Mine needs a PC because the software she needs for her field doesn’t run on macOS at all. So she got a custom build Ryzen.
 
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Reactions: platinumaqua and Rokkus76
Idea was ok, but it was made poorly. First of all I had almost fell asleep when I was watching it: 8 minutes for an ad? Are you serious?

Secondly, this boring audience that literally sat there as if they were invited to a funeral. I don’t know if this is intentional or miscalculation, but it definitely didn’t add to the idea of a video
 
Surprised to see this happening. Apple might bring it back in a few days time or maybe a new ad will be released during this back to school sales period.
 
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They are targeting the wrong age group. 18 year olds going off the college aren't the type that are going to put together a powerpoint presentation to show their parents. At least not for a computer that they probably already have. I mean how many college bound kids don't already have a computer.

You have to target younger kids in the 12-13 year range who are going off to high school, where more in class work is done on tablets or laptops.

But this approach was lame to start. I asked my 12 year old brother if he would put together a powerpoint presentation to show our parents just to get a new Mac and he looked at me like I was crazy.
 
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digimc said:
They are targeting the wrong age group. 18 year olds going off the college aren't the type that are going to put together a powerpoint presentation to show their parents. At least not for a computer that they probably already have. I mean how many college bound kids don't already have a computer.

You have to target younger kids in the 12-13 year range who are going off to high school, where more in class work is done on tablets or laptops.

But this approach was lame to start. I asked my 12 year old brother if he would put together a powerpoint presentation to show our parents just to get a new Mac and he looked at me like I was crazy.
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The PowerPoint thing is actually a trope in teen TV shows. However, it's often as a means to identify the character as nerdy / awkward / bookish / naive in these shows.

 
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Reactions: Jumpthesnark, centauratlas and digimc
The "problem" here is not the humor (and we can debate if it’s funny or not), but how little self-awareness Apple has regarding the fact that their products are very very expensive.

Yes, you can justify it with the high quality of the products. BUT you can also find products that does the same for less. So it’s like that rich friend who complains about poor people and laughs at himself and his funny joke…but not realising his best friend has missed two payments on his,apartment.
 
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Reactions: IJustWannaTalk, platinumaqua and 2DeedleD
I think it got removed because of the inconsistency where the professor said his dad got him a Mac for college, yet someone stole an essay of his laptop in college. Makes Macs sound not secure
 
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