Apple pulls ‘Genius’ commercials from its website and YouTube

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When you have the marketing history that Apple does, you don’t anticipate many mistakes. The company has a long list of successful TV spots, such as the popular “I’m a Mac” campaign.

But obviously, Apple feels it messed up on its latest string of Mac ‘Genius’ commercials. Because it just pulled the three month-old ads from both its website, and its YouTube channel…

MacRumors makes the discovery:

“Apple has removed the controversial ‘Genius’ TV spots from its YouTube channel and from the Apple.com marketing page for the Mac…

…Apple stopped airing the ads on television soon after they were introduced during the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, with Apple’s ad agency saying they “were intended only for a ‘first run’ during the Olympics.” They remained on YouTube and Apple’s website for several weeks, and only in the past few days were they removed entirely.”

There’s no doubt that Apple has taken some heat over the commercials, a set of 3 which featured the same male actor playing an eager-to-help Apple Genius. Some folks wondered if it was a good idea for Apple to make its potential customers seem clueless, which it did in the spots. Watch:

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaKhdRl4rR8[/tube]

As MacRumors points out, Apple does have a tendency to remove older ads from its website and YouTube. But there are still clips up in both locations from as far back as 2010.

What did you think of Apple’s ‘Genius’ commercials? Were they bad enough to pull?