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Everyone remembers that classic series of “Get a Mac” ads pitting a cool Mac against an uptight PC, but when is the last time Apple had a truly memorable marketing campaign? With any luck, there could be another one on the horizon.
Advertising Age filed an extensive report Monday focusing on how Apple plans to reclaim some of its former marketing glory, starting with bringing some of the creative work in-house.
According to industry insiders, Apple is quietly building up an internal marketing agency said to eventually number 1,000 people, and using those minds as leverage to produce better results from longtime ad agency TBWA/Media Arts Lab while keeping critics at bay who claim the Cupertino company has lost its edge.
The most notable recent misstep with Apple’s marketing came during the 2012 Olympics in a spot focusing on the company’s retail-based Genius Bar employees that vanished nearly as quickly as it debuted.
It’s a definite black eye for a company best known for its iconic “Think Different” campaign, especially in the wake of recent attack ads from rival Samsung touting how “the next big thing is already here.”
In April, the Apple v. Samsung patent dispute shined a spotlight on Apple’s marketing woes, including an email from VP Phil Schiller to CEO Tim Cook calling for “a search for a new agency… we are not getting what we need from them and haven’t been in a while.”
Cook apparently took the advice to heart, as the report noted Apple has gone to great lengths to build up an arsenal of marketing talent, including some poached right from its longtime partners at TBWA/MAL — a move that would have been considered sacrilege during the Steve Jobs era.
For now at least, TBWA/MAL remains in the picture, with sources claiming the agency will continue to provide “service-side duties” for Apple, even as Cupertino continues to ramp up marketing efforts to catch up to the iPhone maker’s runaway success over the last few years.
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