Apple ramps up MacBook campaign; RIM folds on anti-Apple ad - Page 2

I think the rule is that you don't refer to a competitor and thus give them credibility if the brand is not already known and if the brand is better than yours. The down side is that you make people aware of the competition when they may not already be aware of them, and also that you are basically making a comparison between two things, so you better be sure your brand is going to come out of that smelling like a rose.

In the case of the Blackberry, at least where I live in Canada, none of these are true. The carrier that has the iPhone does not advertise it at all, they advertise their Blackberry line up only, and the other carriers also advertise the Blackberry line up. If not for Apple's ads, no one would even know the iPhone exists. I would reckon a large percentage of Storm users for instance are buying it unaware that the device is a "response" to the iPhone. I see quite a lot of Storm's being used on my commute, and I can't believe it's only because these folks are "anti-iPhone" to the point they would prefer one of these over the original.

Blackberry's sales of the Storm are unknown at this point, but they might be okay. So they have nothing to gain (at least in my area), from letting people know there is a competing product out there that they compare very poorly to, and that they are trying to "shoot down."

I think it's got the same feel, but it doesn't come close to Apple's ads. a) They're saying their product kills Apple's (which is bollocks), b) it's a touch-phone, and they're saying nothing touches it... that neither works as a literal reference or a metaphor, as both ways it appears negative to the blackberry, and c) they weren't using Lightwave to render the animation... ;p


It would have got them attention though, and started debates in threads like- ... oh.


Yes ... yes they should do that.


Actually, I know I sound like a bit of a knob here, but yes, personally the environmental factors they're touting are very attractive. I'm not a vegan or hippie mind you, but I recycle diligently, unplug utilities after using them, don't have a car, take my own bags to the supermarket, and ... well basically think the 3 R's. So them saying they're concerned about this stuff strikes a chord with me, even if I know it's advertising hype. (Actually it's not really hype, the fact that they've manufactured the laptop from those materials, lowered power consumption, it performs like a shitzu on E and it still looks like silver-freakin-sexiness gets a +++ from me.)

Jimzip

Fixed.

Isn't that part of their agreement with Apple. I thought I read somewhere that Apple was to do all of the advertising for the iPhone.

here I was probably trying to hard to use fancy words. I probably meant something closer to compulsion. The idea is to compel the viewer to buy the product as opposed to setting out a reasoned argument. You can see this in the history of advertisements that started out much longer, more argumentative, and more logical. Nowadays we have 10 second ads in some cases. One cannot logically "explain" anything or construct an argument in 10 seconds really.


Well I would argue, (and many others have as well), that this is just lying by omission. Not telling the whole truth *is* lying.

I would disagree that few ads "lie outright" also. My favourite example of this is the Energiser Bunny ads. They ran for years and years telling everyone that Energiser batteries outlast all others that was almost the single purpose of the ads and the tagline was basically the same in every ad. If you look at the facts, during all that period Duracell was actually the best battery to get and lasted the longest. I don't have the exact copy and I'm not writing an essay here, but somehow it was worded in a clever way so that no one could sue them or whatever, but if you ask people which lasts longer, they will say Energiser and quote the ad as "proof." To me, that's a clear lie, and always made me hate that bunny!


Again, I disagree a bit here. I am incredibly old and remember the truth in advertising legislation and debates from the 70's. A great deal of what is allowed on TV today would be strictly illegal and not allowed based on the 1970's idea of what's a "lie" and what's "misleading" etc., so at best these things change over time. I would not rely on any of the basically toothless agencies "regulating" advertising to winnow out the "bad" advertisements or anything like that. These groups are mostly for show. I can't think of any advertisement that has been rejected in the last 20 years or so, at least not for fibbing about performance issues or gently misleading the consumer down the garden path.

Ads are based on deception IMO. They are almost a perfect reverse weathervane of what's wrong with the product. The breakfast cereal ads that stress nutrition are the ones that are the least nutritious usually; the car ads that focus on mileage are usually by the models with the worst mileage stats, etc. etc. Advertisers use ads to counter the "bad" things about their products by presenting them in a better light a lot of the time. People think they are rationally "choosing" one product or another, but basic sociology tells us that they are being led by the nose. You can literally sell anything to anyone with the right kind of advertisements.

Not sure. I find it odd though.

Epic Fail. For one, the commercial may have first come out during the oscars, but it played for weeks afterward. Also, that wasn't even the friggin point. The point was, that the commercial said nothing about the product.

But there is nothing wrong with that, per se, you must agree. I don't love all advertising, in fact I hate a lot of it, but all they are doing is selling something.

I can't answer for the Bunny (poor thing) but if I sell a car that does 500mpg and I say that, but omit the fact that it has no breaks, I am hardly lying. Of course these days sneaking around the rules is a fine art, and we are all suckers for not delving deeper into the specs of whatever we buy :-(

You are being too harsh and painting in too broad strokes. Companies and their agencies have to stay within the law. Companies are often taken to task - Apple had to remove or alter one or two iPhone ads in the UK, remember? The reason they must stay within the law is because not doing so will reflect VERY badly on them. And likely cost them shed loads of money. The ad-agencies are terrified of getting their clients into trouble. Bad for their reputation and bad for bottom line. Its a very effective form of self regulation

I completely agree. Advertising is an art. You may not like it, but these are on the whole very clever people. If you are interested download the podcasts called "The Age of Persuasion" from iTunes. Very interesting, educational and entertaining.

It is about public image not a reason for people to buy laptops. You will see other computer companies follow Apple footsteps in the near future regarding environmental friendliness.

Though they didn't buy commercial time to air it, by allowing it to load into the viral marketing ammo box they still effectively took the shot. It'd be more accurate to say they pulled the trigger, but wiped the gun stock of prints to create the illusion they didn't.

Great ad, btw. Metaphorical but unmistakable, and with humor. Y'haveta admire that.

apple is in charge of advertising the iPhone. AT&T makes causal references to it in some of their ads, but the deal is Apple will handle promoting the device. Apple likes a consistent theme to the way they advertise their products (ipods, macs, etc) so it's no surpirse they're the ones in full control of the iPhone marketing. They don't want AT&T running around making cheeseball ads like two pieces of fruit killing each other....

In regards to the blackberry ad, it's not very creative. Visually appealing, yes. Creative- no. And the tag line is absolutely horrid.

Perhaps the tagline should be "...nothing wants to touch it"

Well, I am not sure we will ever agree on this and it's driving the thread a bit off track, so I will just respond to this part which I think is central to our disagreement.

I think in the case described above you certainly are lying. The product you are advertising is not the mileage, but the car. You are telling us about one of it's features (it does 500 mpg), and leaving out another (that it has no breaks). But what you are advertising is your great car.

In leaving out that it has no breaks you are essentially advertising this "great car" without telling the customer that it's actually a POS because it has no breaks. To me this is purposely misleading and a "lie of omission" as previously framed.

It's like when they advertise breakfast cereals. They've been using the same line for at least 40 years or so now; that cereal brand X is "a part of any nutritious breakfast." In reality, brand X is sugar coated garbage with almost zero nutritive value and full of questionable chemicals some of which have been proven to actually cause you harm (cancer). No unbiased assessment of that product would ever come back with the idea that it was "nutritious," or good for you to eat, but the manufacturer gets away with it by saying "part of" and having a glass of orange juice hovering in the background of the shot.

You might argue that this is only misleading and not a lie per se, but people are still fooled on a regular basis by this. Most folks are not smart enough, and not interested enough to figure out the details of what is being said, they just see "nutritious" and "cereal" and a smiling mom feeding it to their smiling child. The advertisers know this, and they use it on purpose. That's what they see as their job.

In this case, the essence of what is being advertised here is "nutritious cereal," and if you sat down most people in front of the ad and asked them what the ad was about, they would certainly agree. In fact, the cereal is not only not nutritious, it's arguably harmful. I don't see how anyone can see that as anything but intentional duplicitousness. It's a lie by any other name. Even though the details of the wording are not going to get them in trouble technically or legally, they are purposely selling you something that the product is clearly not.

I had my first Blackberry from 2005-2008. It was pretty much bulletproof till it died.

My second from May 2008-January 2009. Hardware failure- bad usb port, couldn't charge...

My Third from January 2009-February 2009. Weird radio issues won't connect to the network, says it's connected but isn't and vice versa..

To me RIM's products seem to be getting worse each year. The only reason I haven't given up on them completely, is that it's on a corporate account that I don't pay for.

I certainly see your point though your claim would be thrown out of any court. But they are devious, undoubtedly. And you could argue immoral. In the case of cereal I certainly hear you. I have two young kids and it pisses me off no end the kind of junk that is passed off as nutritious food. So should we regulate the crap out of advertising and the food industry? A big part of me thinks so. I certainly am not a free market fundamentalist of the capitalist church. If all advertising aimed at kids under 10 was banned during the xmas season I'd back it 100%. Ooops... I can see I am veering further and further off topic here.

True; however i DO buy electronics that are environmentally friendly, as do many of my friends.

I'm willing to pay a premium for more efficient and recyclable products, and the world is shifting that way I think (i.e. hyrbrid cars, which are selling more lately)

It's week to say, "first touch Blackberry", when that simply makes one think how it's not the first touch phone. I really don't think being a bully is good enough to penetrate - they are going to have to demonstrate why that device is better, if they don't do that - they''l get a few people, but nothing significant. They're up against a game-changer, they need waaaaay more.

But this one sailed right past him

Not a bad marketing move on RiM's part. Like Klennex and Coke, Blackberry seems to have a limited scope of referencing any smartphone. in colloquial speak. I can't tell you how many times people have referred to my iPhone in various ways as a Blackberry, even knowing that it's the device from Apple.

its a CGI of high speed photography that goes back 100 years, with Eadweard Muybridge.

It has become common and cliche.

It'd be funny if the touchscreen did not work well... Oh wait a minute, it doesn't. On another note - it looks like they've used a similar font to Apple ads.

You're right, a straight man would've helped!

Are you really that clueless? The iPhone was only most covered electronic device probably in the world. Everyone new everything about it - Apple had extensive videos regarding it's operation - it was all that was talked about at MacWorld, it's all that was talked about at CES - what the fuck else where they supposed to mention in the commercial.

The real point is - you can't defend the Blackberry commercial for not saying anything about the product by pointing to an Apple commercial which did the same thing because Apple already had a crapload of material demonstrating the iPhone.

Damn that was an example of a classless ad agengy. All I have to say is... Scoreboard, RIM, scoreboard

Please tell us all why Blackberry's suck?

Do you actually have any real reasons? Have you ever had a BB connected to a BES? Have you actually ever used one?

Or is it just "If it aint made by Apple it must suck"?

You're right that in this economy, value takes center stage. But yes, people DO buy laptops because they're environmentally friendly. The people who would buy a Mac are the ones who are concerned with the eco-friendliness of their computer. Apple is speaking directly to their customer-base. They know the message to deliver to those people and will stay static with that message throughout this economic era. SJ has always said that Apple used innovation to make it through the first economic downturn they experienced, and that they would do the same with this one.

Just my (unwelcomed) 2 cents.

The Storm in particular has been panned by...well, just about everybody. Considering that its one and only purpose in life was to be an imitation iPhone, it failed at having usable touch capabilities or a workable OS compared to the real thing. If I recall correctly, it had something like a fifty percent return rate. I myself got an actual iPhone, though, so none of the above is firsthand; it's all just what I've heard. I'm sure the other Blackberries are lovely devices.

He meant the Storm.

But it makes no difference, really, because taken for all in all the rest of the industry it still way behind the iPhone.

Its very simple to know if you should do an ad that mentions your competition - do most people know about your competition?

Most people know that PCs exist and that they are a company in competition with apple = okay to use in commercials

Most people know about the iPhone, so could blackberry use them in their commercials - yes.

basically if your the underdog in a certain category, it is perfectly okay to mention your competition - because people already know about them. If they dont know about them, then yes you are giving them mention which might hurt you.

Mentioning your competition in one thing, but this ad clearly made the point that the blackberry "kills" the iPhone. Not only do they not mention one reason why - but all sales data pretty much points to the opposite being true.

You are right, the rest of the industry is miles behind a phone that cannot run more than one application at a time, a phone that does not offer cut 'n' paste, a phone that is much slower to type on than a Blackberry, a phone that has one of the worst cameras available on a high end phone, a phone that does not support MMS, a phone that does not allow you to text more than one person at a time.

mmm... yup, miles behind.

...yet regularly does. Hmm.


I can only speak from my own limited experience, but I installed clipboard support on mine, and in the months that I had it, I used it maybe twice and never for anything I couldn't have easily typed myself. On a desktop, yeah, copy and paste is an absolute necessity. On a smartphone? Less than you'd think. It'll inevitably come, but who cares except WinMo trolls?


...unless you actually spend more than five minutes learning to type on it. I mean, God forbid, if you own one, that you might actually become proficient with it. If I recall, studies have shown the iPhone's keyboard to be at least as fast to type with as a plastic Blackberry keyboard, depending on which one you cite.


No argument there. Sheesh.


That's right, it only has real email instead of the stopgap fake kind meant for nearly-ineffectual dumbphones. Aww. Those killjoys.


...unless you make the Herculean effort to reach your finger alllllllll the way up and tap the To: field again. Yeah, oops.

Err, no it does not.

???

Phones have had real email for years, in fact every single phone I have had since at least 2001 has had a real, full, email client. People still preferred SMS to write a quick message and MMS to send photographs to each others phones as it is a better technology and more suited to quick, mobile messaging.

Imagine taking a photo now with your iphone that you want a group of friends to see, you are gonna email it and everybody who does not have an iPhone are just gonna wait till they open their email? Or MMS it and everybody gets it immediately.

Yes, they have. I can be listening to the iPod app hole using thr Safari app and I'll be to recieve a call from the phone app. What Apple doesn't allow are 3rd-party apps to run in the background or install processes at the iPhone's startup. Perhaps you can see how a phone's primary focus may need to be a phone and not a silly app that drains the battery becuaee you forgot to turn it off and it was written poorly.


If all regular cellphones have had email capabilities for years then why are you complaining about MMS so much.


According to you everyone has robust email capabilites on their run of the mill cellphones, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I think you have it wrong...Ads are all about giving compelling reasons to buy product A over product B or more precisely, choosing Brand A(pple) instead of Brand B. Now, the reasons and the ways in showing that "compelling reason" are the differentiating factors, be it an appeal to the emotions, or a simple list of product specs and advantages or whatnot.

With that said, the ad is beautifully done (good visuals) but, IMHO, not effective. I could go on and on about the details but the main thing about it is that the ad can be used by Palm Pre (or by any competitor with a iPhone-like UI) and that it wasn't memorable in the sense that the one who took the shot at Apple can be anyone...and therefore can be no one.

The best ads are the ads wherein the product/brand being advertised is an indispensable part of the ad. Taking out BB out of that ad and replacing it with any other brand/product is not going to really break the ad.

If it was just about compelling reasons then CE would just list tech specs for the item, especially in comparison to an Apple product. But they don't because ads are designed simply to generate interest in a product. OFten they compare actual features but they often just doing flashy to make you want to know more about the product. Some popular examples are teaser trailers for movies or the iPod commercials with cartooned people dancing around. The first tells you nothing of the plot or story line,, while the later tells you nothing but that the iPod and accompanying headphones are white, which you already knew. Both are just flashy eye candy to get you wanting more.

You should have included my next sentence in your quote... Ads are there to sell stuff and they give reasons why people should buy stuff instead of other stuff. This is the USP, or the unique selling proposition or in the compelling reason... HOWEVER, what people here don't understand is that there are many different reasons why people buy stuff. And "compelling reasons" have different forms and differ from one person to the other. Some like long list of features, others want to be associated with cool and hip, some like value for money, etc. "Compelling reasons" is NOT limited to tech specs alone, even in computers and tech gadgets.

Call me knit picking or whatever, but the statement "World's first touch-screen Blackberry" sounds like Blackberry is trying too hard to toot their own horn. I mean, who else makes Blackberry devices other than Blackberry? It would be like Apple promoting the iPhone as "World's first OS X based mobile phone". Again, same question would apply; who uses OS X other than Apple? The statement should have been "Blackberry's first touch-screen phone/device." The statement would only work in my opinion let's say MS came out with WM7 and one the manufacturer i.e. Motorola, HTC, Samsung first comes out with a phone with this software and touts it as "World's first WM7 smartphone." The above statement sounds like Blackberry is somehow claiming that they are the first company to make touch based mobile phone.
I've had WM based PDA and after owing the 3G iPhone for about 6 months, I am just so impressed with the fact that Apple who never made any mobile phones before comes out with a phone for the very first time that is so easy to use and intuitive and makes every other phone makers to try to come out with their own touch-based phone.

You can't look at just one ad. The first iphone ad was a classic teaser ad. And classic Apple style.

No detail at all. Aired during a major event. Its meant to pique interest about a new product to a mostly indifferent public. To soften the ground, so to speak, for the more detailed, and multi-layed campaign to follow.

But lack of detail doesn't mean they're not getting their message out. Look what the visuals said. They showed example after example of the classic "on the phone" shot. The old tethered telephone. Then they showed the iphone. and it was completely different, totally new. And that was the point.

The BB ad's visuals said they wanted to start a fight with Apple. That's not a good kick off for a campaign.

They were wise to kill the ad.