Cue the usual happy good-looking folks enjoying Apple products, and then, begin the narration:

This is it.
This is what matters.
The experience of a product.
How it makes someone feel.
When you start by imagining
What that might be like,
You step back,
You think.

Who will it help?
Will it make life better?
Does it deserve to exist?
If you are making everything,
How can you perfect anything?

We don’t believe in coincidence,
Or dumb luck.
There are a thousand “no’s”
For every “yes.”
We spend a lot of time
On a few great things.
Until every idea we touch
Enhances each life it touches.

You may rarely look at it,
But you’ll always feel it.
This is our signature.
And it means everything.

Designed by Apple in California

This ad is done with all the tact and thought behind a “Cash for Gold” commercial. I’m depressed a little more very time I see it.

Why? Because it is Apple leading you by the nose to how they want to be perceived. The “Think Different” commercials talked about creativity and celebrated it, only referencing Apple by association, and setting new expectations.

This new ad talks about Apple, Apple and more Apple. No big ideas, no celebration. It’s just about the incorporated business entity doing some navel-gazing.

That narration is awful, too. You can hear the director saying “one more time, but try to emote more.”

I was sitting in a Taco Bell recently, shoving a cheap lunch down my gullet, when I noticed the artwork that hung on the wall. It wasn’t bad. Someone, somewhere inside that corporation wanted their customers to have something to look at that was pleasant. But rather than just put up some art that made eating yellow lettuce more palatable, they made sure the artwork was made of Taco Bell logos, ingredients and product names.

They wanted me to regard Taco Bell as a nice place, but couldn’t waste a moment to push their corporate goals into my face.

That’s what this ad campaign feels like to me. This isn’t a new manifesto, this is a set of corporate talking points laden with focus-group tested language. Apple wants to make sure people know they’re a good bunch, but can’t resist making it a powerpoint preso.

This is it.
This is what matters.
The experience of a product.

What is “it?” What is “this?” The very first line assumes that you’re looking at picture. It’s declaring that this is an ad. Watching this on TV, my honed anti-ad defense system has just kicked in.

The “experience of a product.” Why use the word “product?” It’s sterile and corporate. You might as just as well say “units.” Why does a person at home give a flying fuck about “products?” Do they write “product” down on their shopping lists? Do kids write Santa Claus for a shiny new “product” under the tree?

How it makes someone feel.

Feel? How it makes me feel? This is something a therapist says in hushed tones to keep from offending you. It’s hard to use a word that is more neutered than “feel.” The words in this ad are too safe and too bland.

When you start by imagining
What that might be like,

Imagining. Another neutered word that comes out of the marketing dictionary. People react with a 76% positive Q score to the word Imagine! Let’s use that word!

You step back,
You think.

Step back from what? Imagining my experiences for the feelings I have for units?

Who will it help?
Will it make life better?
Does it deserve to exist?

Nothing about the process of creating? Apparently, Apple has a fully-formed product that they found on their doorstep and now it rests before the mighty executives to decide if it lives or dies. The product wasn’t shaped by what they wanted to do with it as they built it – it just showed up, complete, ready for divine judgement on it’s very existence.

If you are making everything,
How can you perfect anything?

This isn’t a philosophy so much as a direct shot at Samsung. At the very least, a shot at “competitors.” Why would a consumer care at all what you think about your competition? That’s your problem, not theirs. Make the best product you can, put out there, and hope it flies out of the nest. Don’t talk smack about others. Contrasting your “philosophy” against your competition is just another way of talking about how great you are. It’s a boast.

We don’t believe in coincidence,
Or dumb luck.

If I wrote this in a school essay, I’d get docked 10 points for using cliches.

There are a thousand “no’s”
For every “yes.”

So Apple makes 1,000 products that never make it out of R&D for every one they do release? This is overstating your case, and overstating it for a melodramatic effect. Cheap sentiment.

We spend a lot of time
On a few great things.

This is the first part of this ad I actually agree with…

Until every idea we touch
Enhances each life it touches.

…and then they blew it. “Touch” and “Enhance” are two more five-star focus group words. “Idea” is a three-star. A reader or listener to this won’t even remember these words. They’re weightless and waft away like dust in a sunbeam, ready to collect under the rug and give you allergies later. The worst part of this phrase is that it just sounds so shamelessly corporate. I wonder if the first draft didn’t have “synergy” in it.

You may rarely look at it,
But you’ll always feel it.

Are you feeling it? Are you feeling it now?

This is our signature.
And it means everything.

“Everything.” Another wispy, wimpy word that generalizes. So I sat through the whole ad to end on that? Be specific. If you want to convince me, you need to tell me what it means to you.

Designed by Apple in California

“We’re not evil.” Was that the whole point of this? To just defend yourselves and end with “Made in the USA?”

This ad campaign is just that – an ad campaign. It’s a carefully phrased, non-threatening, vague word salad designed to plug holes in their public profile. It reads like ad copy and has no ambition to raise the discussion or change the focus. It just tries to slap band-aids on Apple’s current problems.

If you’re going to blow a few million trying to reset expectations, you don’t aim low, you aim high and you use words and ideas people will actually remember. Yes, it’s hard to do, but if it was easy, you wouldn’t get restricted stock units.

Worst of all, Apple isn’t content to let the products do the talking for them anymore. As they say in sports, “winning fixes everything.” Apple needs to win with their products, not with their words. Not with ads. Not with shallow ad copy. Not with “statement” ads. Those are for BP and AIG.

Don’t trade on your reputation. Keep making your reputation better.

Focus. Make great stuff. Ship.

Be Apple.