Apple’s newest TV ads, which focus more on how its products affect users, are apparently a flop among viewers, according to data collected by Ace Metrix Inc. The Cupertino-company’s most recent commercials have shifted from their usual upbeat demonstration of features to a more measured declaration of quality and innovation. But the new ads are apparently among the lowest rated in the industry, which averages a score of 542. Past Apple campaigns have topped over 700.
The results of a survey of at least 500 TV viewers who watched Apple’s latest commercial, which started airing June 10 (below), yielded a score a score of 489. An advertising professor at Boston University, Edward Boches, said viewers may not be responding well because the commercials are coming across as too self indulgent. Apple’s other ads from this year, including one that highlighted the iPhone’s camera, also scored poorly.
The more traditional Apple ads typically show a product, the iPad mini for example, without saying a single word; the products are always front and center. But more recently Apple’s commercial include a narrator talking about the company’s corporate philosophy, while also reiterating that its products are designed in California. The ads have apparently scored lowest with males—some described the ads as sad and overly long. Boches said they’re “inappropriately political.”
Ace Metrix CEO Peter Daboll suggested Apple could be scoring low because of its lack of product launches this year. That could change come fall, however, when Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 5S, and possibly other new hardware, including a smart watch.
Here’s one of Apple’s commercials:
This is it. This is what matters. The experience of a product. How it’ll make someone feel. Will it make life better? Does it deserve to exist? We spend a lot of time on a few great things, until every idea we touch enhances each life it touches. You may rarely look at it, but you’ll always feel it. This is our signature, and it means everything.
