Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Pulls 'Convince Your Parents to Get You a Mac' Ad From YouTube
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think a little bit but
They accidentally greenlit an idea from one of their summer interns.
The issue with this video isn't that I don't find it funny. I think it's hilarious in parts, and well done. However, it is more akin to somebody making a fake ad to make fun OF Apple, than it is to real ad made BY Apple. That's the cringey part.
As someone who used to work in advertising, this needed to be a lot funnier to justify being a 7 minute ad. It also feels like it leans a little too far into trying to capture that YouTuber/Tiktoker humour, which is kinda off putting to younger audiences who constantly have their jokes capitalised on by brands.
Apple is losing the plot ad-wise. I think they need an external agency again.
Apple is losing the plot ad-wise. I think they need an external agency again.
Last edited:
If Apple's products were so superior, the company wouldn't have to resort to such pathetic, deceiving tactics. And this example here is far from being the first.
This time period (or moment) cannot be the low point in the last 42 years for you.
Pathetic, perhaps, but I didn’t notice anything I would describe as deceptive. What did I miss?
People are overreacting as usual. They should have stuck to their guns and let the people whining about it just tire themselves out so they can go take a nap.
Hmmm, I find it quite lame and boring. Not funny, not cringe, definitely nothing I could remotely attribute to offensive. Given the quality and creativity of Apple's past advertising successes, it's just...sad.
Say what you want about how bad this advert is, but imagine if Dr Ellen Feiss didn't convince her parents to get her a Mac!
Lame maybe, but it wasn't a bad ad. People are just being overly sensitive.
Same goes for the one with the hydraulic press, also also a bit meh/cringe.
Bad was the whole siri AI thing advertising non existant features, that's bad.
Same goes for the one with the hydraulic press, also also a bit meh/cringe.
Bad was the whole siri AI thing advertising non existant features, that's bad.
Yes, it seems quite obvious that it was, and I was surprised to not find even a mention of Herlihy's comedy group Please Don't Destroy in the article or comments. Please Don't Destroy often has videos on SNL, and most of their videos are extremely self-depricating. I enjoyed this video, but I can see how the humour wouldn't appeal to everyone. But calling it cringe seems like missing the point, and like complaining that John Hodgeman wasn't really an actual PC.
I believe Herlihy and one of the other members of Please Don't Destroy are children of SNL staff writers, and Please Don't Destroy did a video that involved a "nepo truce" after the mention of nepo babies when Dakota Johnson hosted. In this video she mentions one of their other videos done with Taylor Swift and Pete Davidson which was called "Three Sad Virgins" and also embraced their cringe:
I still recall Adam Sandler as "The Herlihy Boy" with Chris Farley in the 1990s, and I assumed that was either written by or as an inside joke to his dad, so I just looked it up and it turns out that his dad Tim Herlihy was Sandler's writing partner and co-wrote at least 6 Sandler films, which may be a good or bad thing, depending on your opinion of Sandler films, but Happy Gilmore was one of them, so he is good in my books!
well in their defense, a lot of the grumps in these forums are hardly spring chickens... the ones that NEVER have a good word to say...
IDK why Apple gives an F. There will always be some who dislike some ads. If it's preferable to not retract an ad, run it on focus groups.
I actually spent time making slideshows like this one when I was a kid. I actually presented some to my parents, while others were basically just for fun. I have two problems with Apple making this ad:
1. It's a 45-slide presentation with a [NAME] template, essentially encouraging plagiarism in an academia-adjacent context.
2. In hindsight, me making those slideshows was embarrassingly consumerist, and a company making one for me feels like it would've been even moreso.
1. It's a 45-slide presentation with a [NAME] template, essentially encouraging plagiarism in an academia-adjacent context.
2. In hindsight, me making those slideshows was embarrassingly consumerist, and a company making one for me feels like it would've been even moreso.
This "ad" was not Apple-style at all. Let Dell and Microsoft put stuff like that out.
You making slideshows as a kid was a creative way to communicate something _you_ wanted.
Apple producing ads with a so-called "comedian" giving a slideshow presentation to college and university-aged audiences screams of desperation. This was a waste of airtime.
I think people are missing the bigger picture here. The ad is simply overproduced and goes against current trends in media consumption.
The ad is too long in a world in where people scroll TikTok, YouTube shorts and clips on X that are generally one minute long.
There are many ads on YouTube that get their message across in FIVE seconds because many would want to skip anything much longer than that.
I’m personally not a fan of the ad, but think the format is the biggest problem with it.
The ad is too long in a world in where people scroll TikTok, YouTube shorts and clips on X that are generally one minute long.
There are many ads on YouTube that get their message across in FIVE seconds because many would want to skip anything much longer than that.
I’m personally not a fan of the ad, but think the format is the biggest problem with it.
I'm a Boomer dad, and I found this ad amusing, if longer than it needed to be. In 1991-1992, I had a tech-writing job in a department that used Macs. Ever since then, I've used Macs for my home computers, even though every job I had before or since has used PCs. Once reason I found this ad funny is that, in the early 2000s, I worked at Intel. One year, the company gave every employee a high-end desktop PC for personal use, separate from our work PC laptop. Since I had a MacBook, I let my teenage stepson use my desktop PC. When he went off to college, he needed a computer, so I gave him my MacBook (I wanted an excuse to buy a MacBook Pro for myself). He was furious, as he'd been certain I'd let him take my PC. I wanted to keep it around, just in case I needed a Windows PC for something. I explained to him why I thought Macs were so much better than PCs. He wasn't happy, but beggars can't be choosers, so he took the MacBook. Now he likes to tell the story about how, after a few months of using the MacBook, he knew he'd never go back to Windows computers. He's been fully invested in the Apple ecosystem ever since.
Humor, of course, is subjective (I found the hydraulic-press ad mean-spirited and slightly disturbing), but the main problem I see with this ad is that, in almost 8 minutes of run time, it doesn't make a compelling case as to why a Mac is a better computer than a PC for college students. It's light? So are plenty of PC laptops. You can secure your files? You can do that on any computer. It has Find My? PCs have Find My Device. PCs crash more? I work remotely, and I have my work Lenovo ThinkPad and my home MacBook Pro next to each other and on all day. There has been no difference in reliability (although my company's IT department does seem to push out more Windows updates than Apple does macOS updates). Macs are a better value, even though they cost more? In what way? Those of us on this forum could give our opinions as to why, but the ad doesn't. In short, I don't think the ad was effective.
Humor, of course, is subjective (I found the hydraulic-press ad mean-spirited and slightly disturbing), but the main problem I see with this ad is that, in almost 8 minutes of run time, it doesn't make a compelling case as to why a Mac is a better computer than a PC for college students. It's light? So are plenty of PC laptops. You can secure your files? You can do that on any computer. It has Find My? PCs have Find My Device. PCs crash more? I work remotely, and I have my work Lenovo ThinkPad and my home MacBook Pro next to each other and on all day. There has been no difference in reliability (although my company's IT department does seem to push out more Windows updates than Apple does macOS updates). Macs are a better value, even though they cost more? In what way? Those of us on this forum could give our opinions as to why, but the ad doesn't. In short, I don't think the ad was effective.
