Apple TV advertising goes beyond small screen with new billboard installations
Taking its Apple TV advertising campaign beyond the small screen and into the real world, Apple is in the process of plastering U.S. billboards with faux broadcast television test patterns rendered in colors borrowed from the company's original rainbow logo.
As seen in the photo, supplied by AppleInsider reader Erik, the nationwide advertising blitz mirrors a series of television commercials aired last week, each of which starts out with Apple's take on the familiar SMPTE color bars.
Created to showcase Apple TV's selection of tvOS apps, the six spots feature 15-second clips from popular games like Crossy Road and video streaming services like Netflix and HBO. The latest Apple TV commercial, for example, shows a snippet from "The Muppets Show" as seen on the WATCH ABC app.
While Apple has in the past relied on billboards to advertise its products, the company broke new ground with this year's "Shot on iPhone 6" campaign. Instead of blowing up professional product images, Apple scoured the Web for beautiful photos shot by actual iPhone 6 users.
Shot on iPhone was later expanded to incorporate videos on the Web and went on to win multiple Cannes Lions awards.
Apple most recently turned to billboard advertising to tout Apple Watch and Apple Music.
The fourth-generation Apple TV was announced in September alongside iPhone 6s and iPad Pro, with the first shipments arriving in October. The current version sports Siri integration, a new touchpad remote, a full-fledged App Store, onboard storage and powerful internals running the all-new tvOS.
As seen in the photo, supplied by AppleInsider reader Erik, the nationwide advertising blitz mirrors a series of television commercials aired last week, each of which starts out with Apple's take on the familiar SMPTE color bars.
Created to showcase Apple TV's selection of tvOS apps, the six spots feature 15-second clips from popular games like Crossy Road and video streaming services like Netflix and HBO. The latest Apple TV commercial, for example, shows a snippet from "The Muppets Show" as seen on the WATCH ABC app.
While Apple has in the past relied on billboards to advertise its products, the company broke new ground with this year's "Shot on iPhone 6" campaign. Instead of blowing up professional product images, Apple scoured the Web for beautiful photos shot by actual iPhone 6 users.
Shot on iPhone was later expanded to incorporate videos on the Web and went on to win multiple Cannes Lions awards.
Apple most recently turned to billboard advertising to tout Apple Watch and Apple Music.
The fourth-generation Apple TV was announced in September alongside iPhone 6s and iPad Pro, with the first shipments arriving in October. The current version sports Siri integration, a new touchpad remote, a full-fledged App Store, onboard storage and powerful internals running the all-new tvOS.
Comments
These ads bleed six colors.
You jest, but sadly there are people that are thinking just that.
I'm not sure why Apple thinks ads with a Test Card pattern are going to get people to buy an Apple TV
A test card pattern would at least be humorous after the Year of Bugs.
I REALLY hoped that Apple would at least come out with a new Apple TV app before doing this kind of mass advertising, and at least expand Siri a bit. I can't imagine ANYONE not being infuriated with the text input experience. I personally know a couple people that got so turned off by it they were close to returning the box. I sure as hell hope they're working their asses off to release one, because the situation now is pretty unacceptable. The Apple TV is a fantastic box, with immense potential, but the letter pecking ruins the experience.
PS- Not a fan of this advertising, at all. Many people today probably don't even know what that background means, and for those who do, it insinuated no signal, or something broken. I don't understand why they'd want that connection to be made.
Lot of advertising money being spent on a 'hobby'
I'm not sure why Apple thinks ads with a Test Card pattern are going to get people to buy an Apple TV
Yes. For most people, that reads as the "There's nothing on TV" screen.
How long before the television manufacturers try to foist the left image’s (horizontal) ratio on us as a “selling point” over previous models? They can only add so many more pixels and they don’t seem to care about color or contrast, so after 2.39:1 TVs take over, where can they go? And once that happens, will theaters expand their screens wider again?
Not the least of which because who other than Dick Applebaum is old enough to remember televisions that displayed them (
I don't get it. It doesn't make any sense. I don't find clever and I don't think most people would get it.
It's pretty obvious the team that worked on Apple Pencil is not the same team that worked on Apple TV. The fact that the remote app hasn't been updated yet nor has Apple authorized use of Bluetooth keyboards, along with Siri still only being able to do basic things makes this product very 'meh' right now. On one of his podcasts Jason Snell talked about the care Apple puts into its packaging and how opening an Apple product is an experience. He lamented that Apple doesn't seem to carry that experience all the way through to getting a product set up these days. And I get what he means. Typing in passwords on AppleTV is a crappy experience. Setting up an iOS device and constantly having to enter your Apple ID password is a crappy experience. Apple really needs to do something to make this a more seamless and less painful process.
A lot of the pain points right now are coming from Eddy Cue's org. I've said it before and I'll say it again I'm not convinced he's cutting it in the role he has. Either he's got too much on his plate or he's not up to the job. Google just hired the co-founder of VMware to run their cloud business. I think it would be a good idea if Tim Cook hired someone to run Apple's cloud business. Then Eddy could focus his attention on ?TV, Apple Music and App Store, all of which need attention.
How many Apple customers actually remember seeing that coloured or the Indian-head test pattern on a TV? I think I may have seen the coloured on on PBS which was some UHF station when it wasn't on between the hours of like 6am and 10pm as a young child turning the knobs on the TV, but I'm not certain. Is that test pattern somehow known to the youth today despite never having channels that ever stuff broadcasting? If not, then wouldn't the meaning you ascribe above be meaningless to them, as well as the test pattern itself? Perhaps that's what makes it clever; it harkens back to something old; perhaps it get people to wonder what it means. Regardless, it's just a fucking billboard.
Is that test pattern somehow known to the youth today despite never having channels that ever stuff broadcasting?
Kinda: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=fallout+4+test+pattern&FORM=HDRSC2
will new Apple TV work on old Panasonic plasma with with 1024x768 resolution? I mean if apps and games will adapt or do i need to buy TV set with Full HD ?
If Apple meant to say "there's nothing on TV" as some have mentioned on the net, I think it'd be stronger to show the old school TV "snow" which would probably make people more curious (especially those who didn't know what the snow was) and they'd have to google it to find out. But, unfortunately, they'd probably wonder why Apple was pushing gay pride.
Then again, many people are so oblivious to many things they would probably just think, "oh look at the fun colors" and then be subconsciously zapped by iHAARP to go buy an Apple TV.
yeah, what do these guys know about selling things. heck, their first iphome commercial just had people, saying "hello?"
you do realize you can swipe the remote faster to move accelerate the cursor, right? after 5 minutes of use it ceased being an issue.
text entry is not a problem. the annoying way apps list all their content in a single horizontal list is more of a problem.
yeah, hopefully those hypothetical people will realize the billboard isn't actually their television set and don't think their hypothetical Apple TVs are broken! It's so concerning....
which is probably why (I'm going to guess) you don't work in advertising but instead question all of Phil schiller's marketing efforts at all times.
people know what the test pattern is, even if they don't know the name for it. it's in movies and sketches all the time. YouTube still uses snow patterns even tho most TVs don't show those anymore either.