Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has not only been a pioneer with its products, but for years you could count on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to make a good television ad. Perhaps even a great television ad. I’m not alone in this assessment. If you have a wander over to YouTube they are all there. Not posted by Apple but by advertising aficionados, fanboys, people who enjoy good music, or just something different? It’s even possible to stream a video that shows ten years of Apple commercials, not surprisingly without commercial interruption. Somewhere just before the death of Steve Jobs, possibly further back, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) suddenly stopped this.
There is little arguing the fact that if you watch television, you see a disproportionate amount of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) ProBooks given its market share in the laptop industry as a whole. It’s rare to see one of your favorite characters or actors working on a computer running Windows. Perhaps this is the reason for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s complacency. Perhaps they just want to save money. Perhaps Tim Cook’s son is a promising voice-over actor and that has been the reason for the shift to “overtalked” products in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s most recent television advertising campaigns. I don’t know, but I do know that for sometime I’ve been quite disappointed by Apple’s “efforts.”
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s ads of the last few years have resembled its stock performance over the last year. That’s not quite true, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s ads have lost more than 40 percent of their creativity, humor, and fun. This stands in stark contrast to the ads of both Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930). Not only are they both biting into Apple’s smartphone lead, but they have taken the creativity-in-advertising baton and run with it quite admirably. It’s also quite possible that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s lack of new “cutting edge” products to promote has left ad men and women with little to say. It’s tough to put your heart and soul into an advertisement for a product that is simply an incremental improvement over its predecessor.
The new one-minute iPhone 5 ad shows people taking quick photos of images as they’re skateboarding, walking barefoot in the rain, watching their daughter’s gymnastics performance, and more, while keeping that pesky voice over muzzled until the final seconds. It’s nice to see.
The latest ad also focuses on the iPhone’s camera, with the conclusion that, “more photos are taken with the iPhone than any other camera.”
