Apple's 'Designed by Apple' TV Ad Scoring Poorly with Viewers

At its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month, Apple rolled out a new advertising campaign centered around the tagline "Designed by Apple in California", focusing on the company's brand and how its primary goal is enriching lives. The campaign has included a 60-second television ad, as well as a dedicated page on Apple's website and most recently two-page spreads in major newspapers.

But Bloomberg reports that the campaign is not registering well with the public, citing survey data from consulting firm Ace Metrix showing that the TV ad is Apple's lowest-scoring commercial over the past year.

The company’s latest ad, which began airing June 10, has earned the lowest score of 26 Apple TV ads in the past year, according to Ace Metrix Inc., a consulting firm that analyzes the effectiveness of TV ads through surveys of at least 500 TV viewers. The ad scored 489 on the company’s scoring system, below an industry average of 542 and far below past iconic Apple campaigns that often topped 700.

Boston University advertising professor Edward Boches notes that the campaign marks a significant shift for Apple, with the focus on the company rather than its products rubbing some viewers the wrong way.

“Apple was never a company that bragged about itself,” said Edward Boches, a professor of advertising at Boston University. “In a manifesto ad, it’s hard not to come across as self indulgent. And even though it suggests the wonderful things Apple products can do, the ad lacks joy.”

Boches goes on to point out that some view the campaign as inappropriately political, highlighting Apple as a California-based company in tacit contrast to Samsung, which is based in South Korea. He suggests that the campaign may end up being a rather short-lived one, similar to the "Genius" campaign that consisted of just three ads running for a brief period during the Summer Olympics.