I think the Mac ad running on the front of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times (and perhaps others) websites today is the most brilliant online advertising I’ve ever seen. (I also think it’s mean-spirited and insincere, as well, which I mention below — but that’s not the focus of this post.) Hands down, it beats any interstitial ad I’ve ever seen — primarily because I’ve always clicked on the “skip this ad” whenever I’ve seen one. It also beats any “rich media” play-with-a-pencil ad. It beat ads that fly-over editorial content. It beats anything that blocks editorial content. It beats any YouTube “user-generated” ad for that matter. It’s incredible. Most incredible, however, is that it is running on the front page of the Wall Street Journal & New York Times websites.
Apple has a long history of redefining what an ad can be. And by ad, I’m talking about the good-old-fashioned paid media kind of advertising where an ad-buyer purchases space or time to run (or insert) some “creative” that is created by some people called “creatives.” I’m not talking about new notions of marketing that focus on creating products that people talk about and calling that “the thing formerly known as advertising” (although I’m a big believer in that, also). In this case I’m talking about the thing formerly known as advertising that is still advertising.
Ask most people what the greatest ad of all time is and they’ll tell you, the Superbowl ad called “1984” that introduced the Mac. But hey, let’s don’t ask “most people,” let’s just google the phrase greatest ad of all time and see what happens.
While Apple and others have created and run “rich media” non-traditional size online ads before — even on the WSJ.com and NYTimes.com websites, I believe the one appearing today on WSJ.com is breaking new ground, 1984 style. Here are a few reasons why:
1. It’s incredible that it’s running on the front of WSJ.com with nothing that labels it as an ad. The ad’s headline is in a little ruled box, but it’s in a font that is extremely similar to the actual headlines on the page. And while the same ad is running on the front of the New York Times website, the ad actually has a “Wall Street Journal” attribution on the headline (it’s covered up in the scan above, however). Of course, it’s obvious to you and me and probably 99% of the WSJ.com and NYTimes.com readers that this is an ad, but if this had appeared in a magazine, well, let’s just say it would have at least needed some clarification or a major ASME bruhaha would be taking place today.
2. This ad proves that the web is not just about “search” advertising: This is brilliant brand-marketing creative. Some of the most effective ever. It’s pretty brilliant product advertising, as well. The fact that I think the campaign is mean-spirited and not accurate is beside the point. It’s so good that it became a part of pop culture — and very few ads do so anymore. (While it’s another point, the TV versions of these ads are perhaps the only advertising that my DVR at home is used for “ad-rewatching” rather than ad-skipping.)
3. This ad demonstrates that brilliant advertisers can actually understand the whole cross-platform, synergistic, multi-media advertising idea that’s been the holy grail of media companies for the past decade: Perhaps it’s because their products jam the halls of every magazine publisher in America, but Apple has never stopped advertising in magazines. It’s hard to pick up a consumer magazine without an iPod or iPhone ad in it. When it comes to TV advertising, Apple is ubiquitous these days. With the co-op dollars they’re getting from AT&T, they’re carpet-bombing NFL football with iPhone ads. This “I’m a Mac” campaign is hard to miss, as well. Except for Nike, I can’t think of an advertiser who has used outdoor or transit advertising more effectively than Apple. And online, they are now setting the mark. Most importantly, each execution reinforces the other.
4. It’s not just about great products: As much as I love Apple products, they are flawed. Leopard is flawed. I know that for a fact. I have 25 Macs I’d like to upgrade to Leopard, but can’t because of some glitches it has with some software that is critical to our business. Yet there is a notion that Apple spends money creating great products so, therefore, it does not depend on advertising as much as companies that don’t create great products. The fact is, they create great products that are designed beautifully, have better-than-competitor usability and support the launch and marketing of those products with brilliant advertising — the kind that gets people to stop in their tracks and write posts like this.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
5. A WSJ quote is on the front page of NYT in 40 point type.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
It is too bad though the ad doesn’t render in Firefox.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
That’s strange, I only use Firefox. Perhaps it’s a plug-in issue.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The quotation marks are in different fonts. It is pretty cheeky, though.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:04 am
I am impressed with Macs and their other products because they are so well thought out. The screens are easier to interact with because one has several means to accomplish any particular function. The screens have well chosen typefaces. In a word it has been described as elegant.
Should something go wrong or one needs a boost, rather than a blank screen, a prompt magically appears on center screen.
I consider a computer as an appliance which is my slave and not the other way around. I want to modify it as I see fit and not be pressured into spending as much to modify it as the original purchase price. I don’t care to stand around discussing how much smarter I am because I understand the innards of the a box.
To understand the iPhone is to understand the Mac. My last phone had a manual that was one half inch thick. I found that even though the iPhone has a manual that can be downloaded, I’ve had to briefly glance at it for a few moments.
Sometimes I think the Apple competitors and their followers resent things that function intuitively because they lose that awe that is inspired by endless techno-babble.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
[...] Rex has a good followup to a post he made last week on some Apple ads he thought were brilliant in the way the looked like real content (complete with graphic). I thought by displaying the current news-screaming front page of WSJ.com with last week’s “ad giant†front page may demonstrate why it’s a challenge to experiment with editorial real-estate and conventions that you have trained readers to believe are reserved for only the most major news story. In this case, I think the experiment — despite its brilliance as advertising — needs need some re-thinking. [Did WSJ.com and NYTimes.com cross the line last week? - RexBlog - 01-22-08] Spread It Around: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
[...] Last week, I wrote that while I believed it was brilliant, the animated Apple advertisement that appeared on the front page of NYTimes.com and, especially, the Wall Street Journal website, may have crossed some as-yet-determined line of what is okay — or not okay — with online advertising on news-media websites. In that post, I wrote: “The ad’s headline is in a little ruled box, but it’s in a font that is extremely similar to the actual headlines on the page…it’s obvious to you and me and probably 99% of the WSJ.com and NYTimes.com readers that this is an ad, but if this had appeared in a magazine, well, let’s just say it would have at least needed some clarification or a major ASME bruhaha would be taking place today.” Later, David Kaplan of PaidContent.org noted that the folks at NYTimes.com had decided to limit the giant ads to “once a month.” [...]
March 17th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
[...] There are many insightful points in Matt Creamer’s essay in Advertising Age, “Think Different: Maybe the Web’s Not a Place to Stick Your Ads. As the title suggests, he uses Apple as an example of a company that, relative to its overall advertising spending, devotes only a small fraction of its marketing budget to “advertising” online. (As I’ve pointed out, when they do advertise online, they do it well.) Notes, Creamer, Apple doesn’t suffer from a lack of exposure online, however. Indeed, in many cases, the sites on which it would advertise have far less traffic than Apple web properties attract. [...]
March 28th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
[...] In January, I wrote about the format-business Apple ad that was running on the front of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal websites. A week later, I pointed out how the ad format compromised the visual effect of editorial following a breaking news story. While I’m a fan of the creative execution of the Apple ad (but still not a fan of its mean-spiritedness and, frankly, don’t believe the veracity of the core message), I pointed out that what was taking place would never be allowed by business magazines or in the print New York Times or Wall Street Journal. [...]