Almost 2 years ago, when Steve Jobs stepped down as ceo of Apple, I wrote...
Advertising will be an early indicator of whether people without vision and taste are moving in at Apple.One of the things I said to look out for was "Creeping Brandism"...
Creeping Brandism: The Apple brand was built bottom-up. That is, the products defined the brand. Virtually every Apple ad was about a product, not the brand (okay, there was "Think Different" but that didn't last.) Keep an eye out for the erosion of this discipline.Well, guess what? After almost 2 years of ineffectual advertising, Apple has thrown in the towel and resorted to all-out brand babble. Here is their latest effort.
Apple has been taking a beating from Samsung who have come at them aggressively. Their response? Mealy-mouth "branding" baloney.
Apple was once the rebellious, ballsy badboys of the tech industry. They knew how to build a brand -- you built it with persuasive advertising about excellent products. They have given up that ground and now sound like pompous, overfed CMOs. Steve must be spinning.
Industry insiders have reported that the agency is very unhappy with the process. Working for Jobs was never a picnic, but at least the end product always had some bite. This stuff is mush.
At the time I wrote,
The product pipeline will take years to screw up. But the ad pipeline can be screwed up in no time.After "Siri" and "The Genius" campaigns and this, the "ad pipeline" is now officially screwed up.
Apple has two problems. First is that they have nothing to talk about. They haven't produced anything of major interest to consumers in a long time.
Second, they have lost their voice. They no longer know who they are. And neither do we.
