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Apple's In-House Advertisements Scoring Lower Than Its Outsourced Ads

I thought chicken fat was a commercial for Nike+ accessories, literally had no idea it was an iPhone commercial until now. I also only ever see it when watching the World Cup so I thought it was made for that, which makes me think even less of Apple and more of Nike. I wouldnt call that a successful commercial at all, successful for Nike, bad for Apple.
 
When you look at a Samsung commercial it caters to the everyday user with a simple little music note. But when you look at an Apple commercial it shoves unrealistic crap in your face that I never do with a smartphone along with a hipster song that tries to hard. I'm normally not stuck at a fork in the middle of the road on the outback or tuning my guitar with a silly attachment. I'm eating ribs with one hand, controlling a tv with another while putting my dishes in the sink; just like Samsung describes it. Just look at the commercials and see for yourself. You rarely see any attachments being used with a Galaxy phone. Most people don't buy specialized attachments.

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lk400 said:
I'm just surprised by how many people know of these advertisements. I have not seen any of them. Are they US only? I dont get to see a lot of advertisements.
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We normally get the heads up from this site or other gadget sites. With the NBA and football season over (not that soccer crap) I don't watch too much live tv.
 
Frisco said:
Those got old very quickly. Nothing will ever match their "Think Different" campaign.
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Nothing will ever match their "1984" ad :D
These new MacRumors smilies will also never match the old ones.

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cdmoore74 said:
You rarely see any attachments being used with a Galaxy phone. Most people don't buy specialized attachments.
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Well that's because there aren't many good ones available. I also rarely see a Galaxy phone, period. Your point still stands. Apple's ads always show the most ridiculous situations that I'll never encounter. None of the new ones are any good, but then again, they're also ads for iToys and not Macs :)
 
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Having a hard time believing these stats. Not a fan of the Gigantic or Chicken Fat ads - the problem is the music. When I think of good Apple ads from the last year, I think of the "Misunderstood" Christmas ad, the "Photos Every Day" ad, and the "Music Every Day" ad. The music was great and the ads were emotionally powerful. Still love playing those once in awhile. They need to hire the composer Rob Simonsen to make some more tracks for them. LOVE his piano pieces.
 
They've been ok, they just don't have the punch of the older ads. Do you think it was the horrible genius ads that pushed Apple to a breaking point with these external creative teams? I keep trying to forget those ads but they are unforgettable—in the worst possible way.
 
Whoever wrote this statement doesn't seem to understand data. There is too little of it to make much of a conclusive statement... and while the outsourced adds have the highest score, they also have the lowest.. Looks to me like the adds are performing about the same, if anything they are more consistent.
 
Mildredop said:
What is all this chicken fat talk? I have no idea what everyone is on about.
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It's an ad promoting iPhone fitness apps and accessories. It features a song called "chicken fat" which was originally the theme song for an American youth fitness programme in the 1960s.

In my opinion, it's by far the best recent ad from Apple. Love it or hate it, at least it's memorable.

Unlike their other ads, which have become so bland and generic.
 
I think the current Apple ads try to be too literal about what you can do with their devices, instead of focusing on making a nice ad with humour and art.

The best ads were the silhouette iPod ads. They were beautiful, artistic, and fun to watch. I'd watch them just for fun. They didn't feature people using various features of the iPod or examples of what you can do with it. There was good music, people were dancing, and that was it.
 
Then again. I find the Windows Surface ads totally unlistenable. They use screechy, inane and tediously dull lady singer-songwriting dirges for their background "music". I turn off instantly.
And Apple of course lives in its land of impossible supermodels and utopian environments of course as ever - but at least it'd not a assault on the ears as well. Much.
 
Reason077 said:
It's an ad promoting iPhone fitness apps and accessories. It features a song called "chicken fat" which was originally the theme song for an American youth fitness programme in the 1960s.

In my opinion, it's by far the best recent ad from Apple. Love it or hate it, at least it's memorable.

Unlike their other ads, which have become so bland and generic.
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Just you tubed it. I hate that advert.
 
Chocolatemilty said:
I find this really interesting, because even though I own quite a few Apple products, I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy. I really like all the major mobile and PC players and am well-versed in all of them. However, I feel the "Verse" campaign is quite compelling. Of course, I am biased being a music graduate student, but Esa-Pekka Salonen's commercial is quite remarkable. When the initial Your Verse commercial first premiered, I felt it was the most compelling Apple ad in some time. I guess not all felt the same. What Apple is most likely counting on is all of their different ads resonating with different factions of people instead of one with all.
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I'm not sure, but I think they might be trying a bit too hard to make something completely original.

What they could do immediately is create an ongoing spin-off series of ads similar to their WWDC2014 keynote intro video about "What does a developer look like?"

They could just keep asking the same types of questions with different types of people and careers and personal interests. This would address the varying personal needs of their growing user base, while unifying them all together as one cohesive group of "likeminded" people.
 
I like the Eso Pekka one alot actually. Maybe it doesn't appeal as much to the traditional mainstream.
 
The Chicken Fat ad is the most annoying Apple ad I can remember, I despise it.
 
cdmoore74 said:
When you look at a Samsung commercial it caters to the everyday user with a simple little music note.
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Have you seen the latest S5 advert then?

It the one where Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo* are playing football**

Says not much about the phone to me, other than it's water proof and has a few processors.

*Soccer
**another player as well, but I'm not sure who he is.
 
Rogifan said:
Why do rumor sites keep reporting crap from Ace Metrix? One, Samsung was/is a client, two, how do we know how reputable Ace Metrix is? I had never heard of them until they started reporting low scores for Apple ads.
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Unless you're in advertising, why would you hear of them?

Ace Metrix is an ad review firm. They don't do ads themselves. Companies sign up with them to do consumer previews of their current and pending ads, and get suggestions for improvement.

As for low scores, the article points out that it's not just Ace who thinks some of the ads are weak:

MacRumors said:
Rob Siltanen, an advertising consultant who wrote the ad copy for "Here's to the crazy ones" told Bloomberg that Apple's struggles may be coming from trying too hard to represent themselves.

Alternatively, Boston University ad professor Edward Boches says Apple could be struggling selling itself as a leading company and may be more comfortable playing off other companies, like Microsoft.
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Of course, such public reports also serve as self advertisements, so mentioning Apple helps get press coverage. It's the same with reports that are favorable to Apple, like those "internet usage" (ad hit count) reports from companies like Chitika.
 
I must be the only one who really likes the 'Chicken Fat' adverts – the tune is addictive.
 
the song got old really fast, also weird to me that they try to recapture their coolness by using a song my grandparents would listen to

the content of the actual ad is not bad at all when you put it on mute
 
zombiecakes said:
I thought chicken fat was a commercial for Nike+ accessories, literally had no idea it was an iPhone commercial until now. I also only ever see it when watching the World Cup so I thought it was made for that, which makes me think even less of Apple and more of Nike. I wouldnt call that a successful commercial at all, successful for Nike, bad for Apple.
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/facepalm

There's an iPhone in every clip in that ad, and there isn't a single Nike swoosh or Fuelband or anything. There were accessories being used in about a third of the activities displayed in the ad, but they were all from different accessory-makers. Also, you know, there's that iPhone 5S and Apple logo at the end. I'm not sure how that can be confused for a Nike ad.
 
Karma*Police said:
Your verse is one of my all time favorite apple ads. How can you go wrong with Robin Williams and dead poet's society? Clearly, times they are a changing... and not necessarily for the better.
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I agree! These ads show how using Apple's devices can be a major tool in one's creativity. Do yourself a favor, if you haven't seen "Dead Poet's Society", go to Netflix and watch it. *Use your iPad...:D
 
Now that I'm realizing which ads this firm is scoring, I completely disagree with the analysis. I think the in-house team is doing a much better job, of late. The "Verse" ads ("Esa Pekka" and "Travel Writer") are fantastic, and I also like "Strength" ("Chicken Fat") FAR more than the "Gigantic" ad. That song from "Gigantic" is so grating -- I can't even tell what distorted crap is coming out of her mouth in the chorus she keeps repeating, but it sounds terrible. It got to the point that I wanted to hit fast forward every time I heard that string sound come out of the phone when he shakes it at the beginning.

Bravo, in-house Apple team.

To those complaining, I'm sure they're actually SAVING money by taking this in-house. Not that Apple has any cash flow issues -- they're sitting on a pile of money larger than any other company's pile of money. Even if they're spending more on advertising than some people on Macrumors want them to, they still have plenty left over to hire engineers and developers.
 
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