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Happy Independence Day to our American readers 🎆.
For today only, we’re breaking free from our usual type of ad teardown 😉.
Instead of focusing on an ad that works well, we’re going to talk about one that doesn’t. 👇
Here’s the ad:
Growing up, July 4th always felt like the halfway point of summer vacation.
And like clockwork, back-to-school ads are already creeping in.
Apple didn’t wait for summer to wind down—they jumped in early with a campaign in June (classic overachievers 🌟).
They released a campaign titled “Convince Your Parents to Get You a Mac.”
It came with a 7-minute video ad and an 81-slide presentation (I guess it’s better than having ChatGPT write the presentation for you 🤷).
But the internet was not impressed.
While some viewers found it funny, most called it “cringe” … and backlash spread quickly.
Apple has since pulled the ad from YouTube.
You could say that removing the video was a stunt to generate a buzz and gain more views (They got us to talk about it 🙊).
But considering they’re citing copyright grounds when taking it down from Reddit threads like this one, it’s more likely they just want it gone.
Thankfully, you can still catch the full video here on X.
So, what went wrong?
A few things:
The bone-dry humor didn’t resonate with their audience. Most viewers didn’t like it, and there’s a strong consensus that a shorter ad would have been better.
Many college students pointed out that their parents would never buy them a pricey Mac. This accidentally highlighted Apple’s affordability problem.
Fans commented that the tone didn’t feel like Apple at all. said the tone didn’t feel like Apple at all. It didn’t sound like them.
In the end, great marketing isn’t just about standing out, but staying aligned.
Stop scheduling status update “check-ins”
56% of workers say scheduling a meeting is the only way to get information. With Jira, use AI to automatically add work from Slack, create subtasks, or attach relevant resources.So instead of scheduling a meeting, check the status in Jira. Easy.
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Apple gave us 81 slides and zero connection.
Unionmade gave us one image and got it exactly right.
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🥓 Everything’s Better With Bacon
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