Posts Tagged → Apple

Jerry and Bill, we barely knew ye

You try to give a beleaguered company some love, and look what happens.

Microsoft is canning its Jerry Seinfeld campaign after airing only two spots. In its place, we are told, is a direct riff on Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign, in which the “PC” character is recast in a positive light.

Wow. Where to start?

First of all, Microsoft’s protestations to the contrary, there is no way this is part of some preconceived strategy. You don’t invest the kind of money Microsoft did, or hire a spokesperson of Seinfeld’s calibre, to run only two lengthy, opaque spots that never built to any resolution. The only explanation is that Microsoft flinched. The ads got some good notices, but they were far from home runs, and Microsoft’s management must have realized — or believed — that what they had in the can wasn’t going to make things any better.

What’s perhaps most amazing is Microsoft’s counter-assertion, that the whole truncated campaign was a carefully worked out, perfectly executed effort to get people talking and generate buzz, a strategy which has achieved its aim and so may now be ended. If that were really the case — and I don’t believe even Microsoft’s marketers are that stupid — then their shareholders should demand immediate resignations of the company’s chief marketing personnel. To piss away tens of millions of dollars on an idea that turned out to be a dud is, perhaps, an honest mistake; to blow it on a campaign that was designed to be no more than a damp fart from the get-go is criminal. If my shareholder value was being wasted in so cavalier a fashion, I’d want an explanation, and I’d want a few heads on spikes along with it. No one at Microsoft even seems to get this — that the explanation they’re offering actually makes them look worse.

However bad the rest of the spots were — and, assuming they were as good as the ones that did run, they must have at least been watchable — Microsoft should have ran them. The whole campaign had a whiff of desparation about it anyway, but knifing it in the cradle shows the company to be genuinely adrift, feverishly moving from message to message in the hope that something, sooner or later, will stick. At worst, people would complain that the ads were stupid; now, they get to point out that Microsoft actually agrees they were stupid.

That news was quickly followed by the report that the next batch of Microsoft ads would appropriate Apple’s “I’m a PC” meme to rehabilitate the Windows PC. I was willing to give the Seinfeld ads the benefit of the doubt, but I have no hesitation in predicting that these new spots will fail utterly. I’ve said this before, so I’ll confine myself to the short version: you cannot tell people that Windows PCs are great, because people already know they’re not. A lot of people spend the majority of their day in front of one; a lot more have at least one catastrophic story about how Windows or Office made their life hell. Going on TV and pleading, ex-boyfriend-like, for people to remember all the good times they had together isn’t going to get Microsoft anywhere. To confine myself to the even-shorter version: it’s the products, stupid. Microsoft cannot revive its brand by touting products that suck, no matter how clever the spots are.

One day, the Apple/Microsoft Ad War will end up as a case exercise in marketing and advertising texts as an instance of perfect binary opposites: a company that executed almost flawlessly against a preeminent rival too slow and witless to respond. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Addendum: the new spot has begun airing. A couple of flashes of humor/cleverness, but otherwise, mostly empty air. Reminds me of that staple gimmick they use in commercials for prescription drugs or financial service companies, where a succession of actors recites the same inane catchphrase (“I’m Claritin-clear!” “I’m Claritin-clear!” “I’m Claritin-clear!”). Before it’s halfway done, you’re just waiting for it to be over.

Thanks to Daring Fireball for the original links.

Time to Kill the Nano

After weeks of rumors, it seems nearly certain that the new iPod nano, debuting Tuesday, returns to the vertical form-factor of the first two iterations, a reversal from the “fat nano” Apple debuted around this time last year. (Here’s the shot if you haven’t seen it yet.)

Assuming this is all true, the move seems oddly retrograde to me. Apple, more than most other companies, prefers — perhaps even needs — to present each new product as an evolution from what came before. A new iMac design isn’t just different: it’s thinner, or lighter, or more ecologically friendly, in addition to the usual speed and storage improvements. Most iPod iterations so far have followed this pattern. The second nano featured a more durable metal enclosure, its successor a horizontal layout that allowed for a wider, video-friendly screen. Other iPod updates have added a non-mechanical scroll wheel, color screen, and so on.

The fourth iPod nano appears to be moving backwards, returning to the visual style of the second model. It may be this year’s models will boast new functionality not apparent in the spy photos, and that such functionality may make aesthetic considerations irrelevant. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the fat nano simply didn’t work, and that Apple was retracing its steps to a more successful and well-received design. (I won’t entertain the notion that the form factor was inspired by the Zune.)

The nano would appear to have come to the end of its road, at least in regards to its design. It’s time for something new.

It’s time for Apple to kill the nano.

From a normal business perspective, this would be foolish — the nano still sells well, most likely remaining the best-selling iPod model, as it has been since its release. The retro model to be unveiled this week will undoubtedly sell well and give Apple another successful holiday quarter.

But how different from the Apple of 2005, which was in the exact same position with the nano’s predecessor, the iPod mini. Ever fearful of being leapfrogged by a competitor, Apple saw the mini as vulnerable, and decided that if anyone was going to kill their top-selling product, it was going to be them. The mini was terminated and the first-generation nano appeared in its place. The audacity of the move was nearly as stunning as the player itself: with the 2005 holiday shopping season about to begin, Apple chose an inopportune time to roll out a completely new product, and many observers felt that the nano’s early supply issues would have been avoided (and Apple’s holiday sales better) if they had waited until the following year to carry out the switch. Besides, who in their right mind kills a market-leading product? It’s like some action-movie badass who carves his own chest before going into battle; Apple’s competition must have been both baffled and scared shitless.

Today the iPod touch is arguably Apple’s “flagship” media player, its sleekest, most forward-looking and probably most desirable. But for the majority of buyers, those with small music collections and a need for a small and unobtrusive (but still usable) player, the nano is the best choice. Apple needs to reclaim the functional and aesthetic leadership in this space, and show its competition it’s not afraid to throw the dice on something new, bold and innovative.

An OS X by any other name

Daring Fireball notes that Apple appears to be firming, and subtly reshaping, the identity of its operating systems. The Macintosh now runs “OS X Leopard” (note the lack of “Mac”) and the iPhone and iPod touch run “OS X iPhone.”

I’ve always found it somewhat peculiar that the mobile version of OS X was named after the iPhone (in developer communications it was originally “iPhone OS”) when it also runs on the iPod touch and, presumably, other unnamed touch-based devices to come. I originally thought they should submit to the obvious and call it OS X Mobile, but then realized three things:

  1. That would be obvious, and rather boring.
  2. OS X is already “mobile,” given that it runs on laptops. (Duh.)
  3. “Mobile” in the technology world has basically become synonymous with “crippled.”

Still, OS X iPhone sounds bizarre, flying in the face of the very change Apple is making with the “original” OS X in that it appears to tie it to a specific device. I thought OS X Touch would be a better choice, encapsulating its chief point of differentiation from its progenitor. But that prompts yet another question: might Apple be planning to evolve the iPhone OS beyond strictly touch-based UIs?