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They’re supposed to be works of genius, but it seems Apple’s adverts aren’t so clever after all: the Californian company has ditched its recent Genius adverts featuring well-informed Apple Store employees in all manner of japesome scrapes.
The new adverts featured a blue t-shirt-sporting Apple Store employee helping people in real-life situations — with hi-lar-ious consequences. They were first aired in the US during the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, but have now vanished from the airwaves — vanished faster than an iPhone left unattended in a bar.
The ads are even gone from the company’s website and Apple’s YouTube channel — the one below was reuploaded by another user. Apple would probably tell you the adverts were only due a limited run, but the fruit-flavoured YouTube channel still feature ads dating back a couple of years, so it’s not like the commercials have a limited lifespan.
Fans objected to the depiction of Apple users as morons, unable to complete the simplest task without a teenager in an Apple shirt patronising them.
Honestly, hasn’t that guy ever heard of duty free? Get the bottle of gin with the fanciest label and you won’t have to do the washing up for months.
Apple ads still available on YouTube include Siri celebrities endorsing the iPhone, including the likes of Zooey Deschanel, Martin Scorsese, Samuel L Jackson and John Malkovitch Malkovitch Malkovitch Malkovitch Malkovitch Malkovitch.
Apple adverts have often divided opinion: the long-running Get a Mac series, starring Mitchell and Webb (or Justin Long and John Hodgman in the US), either made Apple look cool or insufferably smug, depending on your viewpoint. Nonethless, Adweek declared the ads featuring the nebbish PC and hipster Mac to be the best advertising campaign of the 21st century — click here to see all 66 Get a Mac ads in their plinky-plonky glory.
Where the Genius adverts a terrible idea, or are Apple ads always works of genius? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.