Apple has posted some new adverts for the iPhone 5. The good news? They’re nowhere near as cringeworthy as the “Genius” ads it tried a couple of months ago.
The bad? They are still quite annoying.
“Your thumb,” starts the first advert. “It goes from here to here. This bigger screen. It goes from here to here. Now, that’s either a) an amazing coincidence, or b) a dazzling display of common sense. Pre-tty sure it’s the common sense thing.” See what I mean?
Another one riffs on the laws of physics, while another claims Apple has done something pretty special with its earpods (which takes quite some chutzpah, considering how bad its headphones were for years).
Unsurprisingly, the Maps feature isn’t mentioned, though it does make an (albeit fleeting) appearance.
Still, at least these ads focus on the product and its features. During the Olympics, Apple gave us some actors hamming it up in a series of Genius adverts, which portrayed its customers as clueless. They also downplayed the simplicity of Apple products, which I always thought was one of the main selling points.
Apple soon ditched them.
Samsung, meanwhile, took direct aim at Apple with its latest advert. While it didn’t name the Cupertino company, it showed a queue of fans with white headphones awaiting a handset launch. The punchline? The iPhone 5 is for old fogeys, according to the ad, while Samsung has had all these new features (bigger screen, 4G) for ages.
Samsung previously portrayed Apple fans as sheep, unable to think for themselves. And last week it unveiled an ad showing specs of the Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5 side-by-side, though it left out a few key ones.
Maybe it’s me, but neither approach really seems appealing. Surely there’s a way to focus on the product without ribbing the competition, and without sounding so pleased with yourself at the same time?
Let me know what you reckon in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.