I get it. Parents confronted with the exorbitant cost of a college education and the possibility that their progeny will also need a new laptop are disinclined to spend $1,000 or more on a Mac when a Windows machine could be had for hundreds less.
I also know that the decision is not that obvious or straightforward. A Windows computer that costs $450 is in no way comparable to, say, a $999 MacBook Air. That, I think, was the point of the nearly 8-minute-long YouTube ad Apple launched and then apparently made private within 24 hours (but other copies of it still exist – see below).
Titled "Convince Your Parents to Get You a Mac", the ad is set in a college pep assembly with an audience full of disinterested teens (or actors, it's hard to tell) and SNL's Please Don't Destroy's Martin Herlihy as presenter.
It's not what I'd call a clever ad. The premise...well, I'm not sure there is one. Herlihy is mostly just presenting Apple's "The Parent Presentation" Keynote template, which anyone can download and, ostensibly, modify to convince their parents why it's a good idea to invest in a Mac for their child's college experience.
Taken at face value, Apple's presentation is spot on. Yes, a Mac is more expensive, but still an excellent value because of things you don't need to invest in or worry about, like backup software, blue screens, and antivirus software. The best MacBooks are well-built and lightweight.
Like I said, solid argument.
I do not understand why Apple chose to promote it with an overly long video featuring jokes and bits that didn't land with me or the college prep audience, which sits in uncomfortable silence for most of the video. This may have been part of the joke, but I didn't see the humor in it.
Hard to watch
Herlihy gives it his all. The cringe humor fits in nicely with some of the work he's done on SNL with Please Don't Destroy castmates Ben Marshall and John Higgins. Without them to play off of, however, each joke floats lifelessly out over the audience before cashing in the aisles.
I wonder if someone at Apple, maybe CEO Tim Cook, happened to check out the "ad/infomercial" after it launched and immediately knew this was a misfire.
Essentially, Apple managed to take its most salient points and make them hard to listen to or sit through.
Obviously, Apple considers this a critical moment in the pre-back-to-school buying period. It's hoping with this ad or maybe others like it, to plant a seed, and preferably one in the heads of those who can make the laptop purchase. Enlisting teens who want new laptops in the efforts is smart, but this was not the way.
The video is too long, too weird, and too oddly earnest to be a shareable bit of content. If this were on TikTok, I would've swiped up within 12 seconds.
There may be some salvageable parts from this marketing misstep, but I kind of doubt it. Don't worry, though, Apple is good at this stuff and I'm sure they'll be back soon enough with a TikTok-length ad that all your friends will want to share with each other and, eventually, their parents.
If there's a lesson in this, it's that Apple might just want to leave the whole effort to teens who, it seems, are already earnestly sharing their presentations on TikTok.
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