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Focus on TV, Aversion to Social Media, Stalls Web Viewing

by Michael Learmonth
Published: March 09, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Apple went big on TV for the new iPad with multiple spots during the Oscars telecast, but don’t expect “Meet iPad” to do huge numbers on the web.

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While other big-budget TV marketers have taken to flogging their TV ads using social tools on YouTube, Twitter and elsewhere, Apple’s strategy is decidedly retro. For Apple, it’s all about driving viewers to Apple.com, and a potential sale; dissemination of the video itself is secondary.

To wit: Apple’s “Meet iPad” has registered 275,000 views on the web after its debut before an Oscars audience of 41 million Sunday night, from 70 different placements, according to Visible Measures. Respectable, but given the general excitement on the web for new Apple products, a sleepy start. The most-viewed copy with just about 100,000 views was uploaded by a YouTube user, not by Apple.

Social aversion
Apple generally does not participate in distribution channels it doesn’t control, especially social media, which collides with the CEO Steve Jobs’ command-and-control style of running the company. For example, Apple does operate a Twitter handle for iTunes, but @apple is in cold storage.

But Apple’s approach is particularly striking given how much energy even the least tech-y major marketers spend to get web views on, say, their Super Bowl campaigns to squeeze additional return on their multimillion-dollar investments. By contrast, Apple’s online distribution of its ads focuses on ad buys on, say, Yahoo’s home page or in rich media units on YouTube, NYTimes.com or WSJ.com.

“They have willfully abstained at a time when everyone else is hopping on this bandwagon,” said Matt Cutler, VP at Visible Measures.

Apple’s enthusiastic user base can be reliably trusted to devour anything related to the company or CEO Steve Jobs. Apple never has to even ask. But given that enthusiastic support, Apple ads tend to underperform on the web; only one has made Ad Age’s viral chart in the past year, which is typically populated by lesser marketers.

Different approach for iPad
But Apple may be changing its playbook in the iPad, at least a little. The company posted six iPad-related videos to its YouTube channel, albeit with comments turned off, and even allows users to embed the videos on their own sites.

It’s a step in a different direction, but as one observer points out, far from embracing the kind of interaction that drives sharing. “This is no different than putting a TV ad on ABC — it’s just going where the eyeballs are,” said Steve Rubel, senior VP at Edelman Digital.

Another factor is Apple’s ads, by longtime agency TBWA/Media Arts Lab, are made for TV and don’t translate as well online as this spoof if an iPhone ad, which has done about 1.1 million views on YouTube.

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Without comments.

It’s always a one-way street when Stevie J. is involved.

It’s safe to say that the iPad has been “viral” for years now. Hundreds of journalists and bloggers, including this one, speculating, “reporting,” and counting down until the launch — year by month by day. It’s been exhausting.

With $17 BILLION liquid assets in the face of the worst economy in 80 years, most companies probably wish they could be as “retro” as Apple.

Maybe the online views of this ad are comparatively low for the simple reason that the ad is not very good. The cuts between shots are rapid fire and hard to follow, the music is jangly, and the overall effect is off-putting. this in contrast to some of the early iPod ads that were so great they had me dancing around the room.

Not paying much attention to social probably has something to do with low view numbers, but I think it has more to do with poor creative execution.

Perhaps one (pretty interesting?) way of looking at Apple’s overall strategy/use of SM is that suggested by Kapferer+Bastien – that Apple has rather brilliantly adopted a strategy more commonly used by luxury brands – remaining aloof, not generally encouraging chat WITH the brand, elevating its status to that of cult/religion (Steve as God, unveiling events as Revelations)… which has lead to unprecedented levels of chat ABOUT the brand, huge numbers of worshippers/devotees/advocates, and frankly stupendous business effects.
C’mon, Apple is a brand that makes SM really, truly work for them. There’s no one-size-fits-all here, is there? Sometimes the social media bandwagon seems like the worst kind of cult – brands DON’T all have to engage in the same way, and Apple proves the point by rocking the boat in a smart, strategic way – rather than simply unthinkingly hopping on twitter – *boik* More than Apple themselves, I think it’s the user community that promotes the product more than the company itself. also, the Apple site is quite rich and most may go directly to Apple.com to view the video.

I think this IPAD cartoon sums up how the product gets viral on its own.
pixelbrush.blogspot.com/2010/03/steve-jobs-launching-ipad.html