Apple's Advertising Revamp Include Plans for In-House Team of 1,000 Employees

[whooleytoo]

Marketing **is** innovation. I'm a techie myself but I don't underestimate how important marketing is. Most popular products aren't necessarily the best, they are the ones marketed best.

For Apple, sure! For us, no. I'd rather get the best product, than the best-marketed one.

 

[bazinga!!]

Well as soon as I saw the "powerful" ad above, I understand why. They've been stuck in displaying boring "life-enhancing" features in their ads. Where is their inspiration? These typical Apple ads are just plain boring

 

[crsh1976]

Coming from the ad agencies, I'd be very, very weary of integrating a client's in-house advertising team - it spells disaster for getting to create great ads though, you're owned by your client so you're just a yes-man in the end.

The line between working for a client and being owned by them may seem blurry, but it's important for some people to keep a distance and some autonomy. TBWA has always produced great work for Apple, no idea what changed.

In any case, I'm not worried for Apple, they will find plenty of talented people, but the ads may very well suck.

 

[Rogifan]

Steve was heavily involved in marketing and design as CEO, so I'm not suprised we see a qualitative decline in these two areas.

According to who? The Jobs sycophants who post on sites like MacRumors?

 

[futbalguy]

For Apple, sure! For us, no. I'd rather get the best product, than the best-marketed one.

Well it often times is worthwhile to make sure the product you purchase will be somewhat successful financially so its supported for many years and third parties contribute to it. Example is HD-DVD which was not necessarily better but wasnt bad and its now extinct. Marketing plays a big part in how financially successful a product is.

 

[DaffyDuck]

So, instead of innovating, we will just market some more...

I wonder how many engineers they could have hired for the same cost of 1000 marketing professionals.

It's pretty sad. I was hoping they would in-house maps but instead they do this.

 

[rmatthewware]

So, instead of innovating, we will just market some more...

I wonder how many engineers they could have hired for the same cost of 1000 marketing professionals.

Two.

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Well there is a blockage somewhere in this pipe of awesome products.......

Seems they need engineers to hit the September launch of all their hardware, and Marketing personnel to market those devices for the next 12 months. So they might need more than 1000......

I think a lot of the blockage can be attributed to the supply chain. There are only so many companies that can do what Apple wants.

On the Apple side, they seem to be short on programmers rather than engineers. Several times I've read about programmers being pulled off other projects to get an iOS or OSX release done on time.

 

[Woyzeck]

I think there's a good reason to keep some functions out of a company's direct influence. Advertising is such a function, where you have to hire people that might not be compatible with your culture and managers that didn't climb the internal ladder.

 

[69Mustang]

Look no further then Samsung and their deceptive marketing and how important it is to counter that.

I don't think Apple would be hiring these people to counter Samsung's advertising (not sure what's deceptive about what they've done). I think Apple is looking to capitalize on more effective marketing. It looks like their current firm got complacent. Apple wants better.

Whether or not someone likes Samsung's marketing is immaterial. There can really be no debate of it's effectiveness. It definitely changed the fortunes of the company and landscape of Android handsets. Apple's marketing used to be great, it's currently good. They want it to be great again. That's just my opinion.

 

[FakeWozniak]

Looking forward to the big development center in Austin, Texas. Hope that they drop the arrogant "Designed by Apple in California" and Mavericks/Yosemite bull crap. Would like them to move to my metropolitan area, I'd consider working for them.

 

[fa8362]

Another mistake. Apple made this same mistake in the 80's when they dumped Jobs and Chiat\Day and went to BBDO. Now Jobs is gone and history is repeating itself.

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Bazinga, that life enhancing stuff was Apple's idea, not the ad agency's.

 

[Fattytail]

This is great news.

Maybe with 1000 new ad people, they can innovate a word to use instead of "awesome".

Personally, I'd rather see them hire 998 new ad people and 2 people to do a minor mac mini update with the Haswell CPU in the same form factor. But then I'm not Timmy.

Ha, and don't forget about "really great." That one seems to be thrown around with regularity as well.

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I don't think Apple would be hiring these people to counter Samsung's advertising (not sure what's deceptive about what they've done). I think Apple is looking to capitalize on more effective marketing. It looks like their current firm got complacent. Apple wants better.

Whether or not someone likes Samsung's marketing is immaterial. There can really be no debate of it's effectiveness. It definitely changed the fortunes of the company and landscape of Android handsets. Apple's marketing used to be great, it's currently good. They want it to be great again. That's just my opinion.

That any firm would get complacent with an Apple account really boggles my mind. I'm curious to know what actually happened behind the scenes that prompted this shift. Although it does seem like in many aspects Apple is trying to reign in control as much as possible. Chip design and manufacturing, sapphire glass production, now marketing.

 

[mozumder]

If they want to do this right then they need to open an office in New York and recruit there.

 

[PatriotInvasion]

If "Your Verse" and "You're More Powerful than You Think" is their answer, they have some work to do. Neither campaign leaves me wanting to buy an iOS device if I even realize that it was a commercial for an iOS device in the first place amid all of the distracting things I'll never do in my life.

 

[rei101]

It takes 1000 people to possibly do what Steve Jobs used to.

Apple ran out of ideas and innovation, that is why they are so desperate looking for imputs. Now... they do not look desperate but they are. Eventually they will end up being a Sears or something like that.

 

[69Mustang]

That any firm would get complacent with an Apple account really boggles my mind. I'm curious to know what actually happened behind the scenes that prompted this shift. Although it does seem like in many aspects Apple is trying to reign in control as much as possible. Chip design and manufacturing, sapphire glass production, now marketing.

Honestly, I think the job became too easy. They really had no competition for the customer's eye. For a time, Apple was the "be all end all" in the phone space. Same in tablets. Android was still in it's growing stages and MS was basically dipping it's toe into mobile. Advertising for Apple became akin to advertising for a pile of money. Everybody's gonna get it.

Then came Samsung. They filled dumptrucks full of money and backed them up at the marketing dept. I think they caught everyone by surprise with the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Suddenly, the soft emotional piano music wasn't enough anymore. Here's hoping the internal team brings some fire back to Apple ads.

 

[egan311]

So, instead of innovating, we will just market some more...

I wonder how many engineers they could have hired for the same cost of 1000 marketing professionals.

Exactly.

 

[Cyborg21]

Very true. Look what marketing did for Samsung. A great product with not so great marketing ends up being a great product sitting on a shelf. Ask HTC.

I agree both of you! I have to admit Apple hasn't got best marketing here. I mean, I haven't got any interest in Macs and I always saw them as ''normal'' computers. Until I started doing researches about them and I discovered many great features on Mac, most people didn't know about them until I said them. Also a lot of android users didn't really know about iPhone/iPad or iOS. And I think only reason why Samsung is still selling is Samsung's brilliant marketing. A lot of people still think Samsung is best while they have worst flagship phones in my opinion. And only reason why HTC one (m7) didn't sold is lack of marketing.

 

[Klae17]

So, instead of innovating, we will just market some more...

I wonder how many engineers they could have hired for the same cost of 1000 marketing professionals.

9 women do not accelerate baby-making into a month. If you knew anything about engineering you will understand this principle.

 

[Alumeenium]

maybe incremental updates like a bigger screen and 128gb
aren't that special after all

zzZZzZzZzzZz

 

[Wild Warg]

Advertising is obviously a big deal for Apple...They have some great ads. Look forward to what they come up with in house.

 

[MonksMac]

Hmm, I think this could be either a great idea or a terrible one - like a couple of others in this thread have already said.
OR, this could be a shrewd political move on Apple's part in order to spur TBWA/MAL to get the Apple account in order.

However, if it's true that Apple really is building an in house agency I certainly wouldn't mind being part of it... As a senior majoring in Advertising I could use a job and wouldn't mind relocating to California.

 

[BvizioN]

So, instead of innovating, we will just market some more...

I wonder how many engineers they could have hired for the same cost of 1000 marketing professionals.

Comments like this always amaze me!
You know, it's impossible to innovate and improve marketing at the same time! Either one or the other...

 

[Rogifan]

It takes 1000 people to possibly do what Steve Jobs used to.

Apple ran out of ideas and innovation, that is why they are so desperate looking for imputs. Now... they do not look desperate but they are. Eventually they will end up being a Sears or something like that.

Steve's RDF at it's finest.

BTW, we're getting things like control center, inter-app communications, third party keyboards and widgets because Jobs isn't here to veto them. This past WWDC was the most developer focused in a long time; because we now have a leadership team in place that actually gives a damn about developers.

 

[mabhatter]

I don't think the ad agencies "get" Apple anymore. Maybe they never really did. A lot of the ideas that seem to have come out of outside ad guys have been pretty awful lately. It seems the only Apple ads to work well are the ones you find out later Apple took over creative control to make.

Then you've got those emails that came out in court, between Apple execs and their agency. Shows the ad guys have no freaking clue.

So good, Apple will do it all in-house. They probably should've been doing that all along.

And for everyone worried about Apple hiring marketing guys instead of engineers, it's not like Apple is strapped for cash, and it's not like they weren't hiring outside marketing people anyway. They're just shifting it where they have more control, where they can fire people that don't work out, and in the long run it'll probably be cheaper. Would you rather pay an ad company looking to make a profit, and doesn't understand your business, or would you rather pay your own guys internally, who you can train in your culture, and keep the profit yourself?

Ads were one thing Steve totally dominated... Right down to song choices. That's an area of solid loss now that Steve is gone.. Tim just never worked with those guys much, and Tim is pushing the company in a clearly different marketing direction than Steve ever would.