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With Trattner back, will Apple's ads get their groove back?
March 19, 2013: 8:42 AM ETThe creator of Get a Mac - and Samsung's Superbowl ads - is back at Apple's agency
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FORTUNE -- We were not alone in thinking that the balance of creative advertising power shifted when Scott Trattner -- widely credited with some of Apple's (AAPL) most successful ad campaigns, including the long-running Get a Mac series -- left TBWA/Media Arts Lab for 72andSunny, the agency behind a spate of recent Samsung commercials that went viral. My favorite: El Plato Supreme, viewed 9.5 million times on YouTube.
Well, he's back. Mark Gurman, formerly 9to5Mac's star high-school blogger -- now a college freshman, still blogging for 9to5Mac -- has the scoop.
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New Android TV spot mocks the iPhone's customer base
The ad wars heat up as Samsung attacks Apple with the most effective weapon: humor
Samsung has certainly stepped up its marketing game in advance of the 2011 holiday selling season.
Last week it was a TV ad for the new Galaxy Nexus -- due to arrive in the U.S. in December -- that had the look and feel of an iPhone spot. (See: What Google learned from Apple.)
This week it's an ad MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 23, 2011 6:49 AM ETPosted in: Advertising, Android, Apple, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S2, Get a Mac, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Samsung -
Mixed reviews for the latest 'I'm a PC' television ads
Microsoft's new marketing campaign seems to be stuck in a time warp of Apple's making
Reactions to the new Microsoft TV ads -- the first of which aired Monday night (video below the fold) and featured a young woman who is persuaded to accept a free state-of-the-art Windows 7 PC by a salesman who secretly built a computer store in her home -- run, like water faucets, either hot or cold.
Half MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 10, 2011 11:11 AM ETPosted in: Advertising, Apple, Get a Mac, I'm a PC, iPad, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, PCs, Personal computer, TV, Windows -
Warning: Macs might spoil your fun
Microsoft's latest pitch on the Web for Windows 7 is a six-point Apple attack ad
Where are John Hodgman and Justin Long when we need them?
It's been more than nine months since Apple (AAPL) issued its last three "Get a Mac" ads -- aired, not coincidentally, the day Windows 7 launched -- but the sting still lingers in Redmond, Wash.
On Monday, Microsoft (MSFT) took another crack at countering Apple's three-year television MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 10, 2010 6:48 AM ET -
Apple's heart-breaking ad campaign
Eight months after it wrapped up the "Get a Mac" series, Apple rolls out a worthy successor
Here's one thing Apple (AAPL) does better than any of its competitors: advertise on television.
Microsoft (MSFT) never quite recovered from the three-and-a-half-year drubbing it took at the hands of Justin Long and John Hodgman. Google (GOOG) is still playing catch-up to "There's an App for That."
And how is anybody going to answer Apple's latest MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 12, 2010 6:30 AM ET -
iPad ad: Apple's homage to the Newton
A bit of nostalgia -- and some unfortunate associations -- in the new TV campaign
For viewers with short memories, the deep-voiced narrator in the "What Is iPad?" ad that debuted Wednesday evening on American Idol might have sounded a bit too much like a Motorola (MOT) Droid commercial ("Should a phone be pretty? Should it be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?")
But as several observers have pointed out MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 13, 2010 6:22 AM ET -
Apple: Best [-----] of the Decade
Steve Jobs and Apple appeared in an extraordinary number of 2009's "Best of" lists
Our favorite: "There's an app for that," the Yale Book of Quotations' No. 3 quote of the 2009, right before Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie" and after Captain Sully Sullenberger's "We're going to be in the Hudson."
Some other citations...
Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade. Fortune magazine. Steve Jobs: Best Performing CEO in the World. Harvard Business Review. Steve Jobs: Person MORE Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 31, 2009 7:18 AM ETPosted in: AdWeek, Apple, Best of, David Pogue, Find My Phone, Fortune, Get a Mac, Harvard Business Review, Tim Cook -
Mac ads haunt Steve Ballmer
Shareholders press Microsoft's CEO about Apple's marketing campaign
Those Get-a-Mac ads make "you all look like a buffoon," one long-time shareholder (and father of four Mac-using children) told Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer at the company's annual meeting Thursday. "I'm just wondering why your marketing group can't do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you've got a real bad image out there."
"We all watch television," Ballmer responded, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 20, 2009 10:05 AM ET -
Apple pays Google for Windows 7 hits
Cheeky Get-a-Mac ads are not the only way Steve Jobs is going after Microsoft
If you ran a Google search for "download windows 7" early Monday, you got about 137 million results -- plus something you probably weren't looking for. There, at or near the very top, was a sponsored link suggesting "There's never been a better time to switch to a Mac."
A four-line ad was spotted over the weekend by MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 2, 2009 7:10 AM ET -
Apple's 2009 ad budget: Half a billion
Those Get-a-Mac spots aren't cheap, but they deliver a lot of bang for the buck
Apple (AAPL) shells out a ton of money for advertising. In fiscal 2009 it spent $501 million, according to the 10-K form filed Tuesday. That's up from $486 million in 2008 and $467 million in 2007.
But half a billion doesn't seem like so much when it's compared with the $1.4 billion Microsoft (MSFT) spent in fiscal MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 28, 2009 12:19 PM ET
