Advertising

New Apple video goes behind the scenes of ‘The Song’ holiday ad

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 17, 2014

Earlier this week, Apple begun airing its new holiday ad titled 'The Song' which features a woman using her Apple hardware and software to record herself singing along with a recording of her grandmother from several years ago. The 30-second commercial wraps up with a scene depicting her grandmother enjoying the resulting song on an iPad.

Today, the iPhone maker via its YouTube channel released a behind-the-scenes video titled 'The story behind “The Song”' featuring the ad's musician Dana Williams and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens who explain basic concepts behind the commercial and lay out a creative workflow which involves most of Apple’s current product lineup.

Apple launches star-studded Beats #SoloSelfie campaign

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

In addition to a new iPhone 6 television commercial featuring Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake and voice messaging in iOS 8's Messages app, Apple and Beats (which got snapped up by the iPhone maker for $3 billion earlier this year) kicked off a new #SoloSelfie thingy.

In a nutshell, it's a campaign that promotes the Solo2, ”the world’s best-selling headphone.” Like other Beats campaigns, #SoloSelfie includes more than a dozen celebrities including Kendall, Kylie Jenner, Nicki Minaj, Kenan Thompson and a bunch more who can be seen snapping selfies while wearing the high-end headphones.

Watch Chase’s first Apple Pay TV ad featuring Jack Antonoff’s Bleachers band

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

As reported by Ad Age this morning, Chase, one of early launch parters for Apple Pay, will begin airing its very first television commercial highlighting Apple's mobile payment service later today. The ad depicts Fun lead guitarist Jack Antonoff and his indie band the Bleachers relying on Apple Pay to make purchases at several locations while making preparations for a rooftop concert.

The commercial is meant to boost Apple Pay's appeal in small business environments. Businesses using the Chase Paymentech service for payment processing can now tap the bank's Future Proof Terminal to accept Apple Pay payments at the register. Moreover, Chase has released updated SDK tools for developers to implement paying for goods and services in apps with Apple Pay.

New Microsoft ad says iPhone 6 Plus only makes Siri bigger, not smarter

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 6, 2017

Friday, Windows giant Microsoft published a new Apple-bashing ad on its YouTube channel.

The 30-second television commercial shows off the latest version of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri-like personal assistant, running on the Lumia 830 and interacting with a bunch of built-in applications.

Cortana amusingly brags to Siri about being able to perform functions Apple's personal assistant can't, like alert users to leave early for an appointment using traffic alerts, remind them of things based on who calls or texts and more.

Apple partners with Rubicon Project to help sell, automate its iAd inventory

Jake Smith ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Rubicon Project, a company that focuses on automating the buying and selling of advertising, has announced a partnership with Apple to help the Cupertino-based company move its iAd inventory. Apple hasn't officially commented on the matter, however speaking for the company Rubicon Project says "it had been selected by Apple to help power iAd’s adoption of automated advertising for Apple iAd’s 250,000+ mobile developers."

Microsoft disses Apple in Christmas Surface ad

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Software giant Microsoft is no stranger to Apple bashing. Every once in a while, the Redmond giant take aim at Apple's iPad tablets and MacBook Air ultra-thin notebooks by putting out aggressively conceived television commercials for its Surface tablets.

Just in time for the looming holiday shopping season, Microsoft started airing a brand new Surface Pro ad that argues that its tablet convertible with a kickstand, keyboard cover and desktop apps is a better deal than the MacBook Air.

AT&T says it’s no longer tracking subscribers using perma-cookies

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

AT&T told the Associated Press on Friday that it is no longer using permanent cookies to track its subscribers. In late October, security researchers discovered that the carrier, along with its competitor Verizon, were using unique identifying numbers or "perma-cookies" to track their customers online habits.

A spokesperson for AT&T said that the tracking practice was part of a pilot program to improve targeted marketing called "Relevant Advertising." But it says that the experiment is over, and it has pulled the identifying numbers from their customers' accounts, although it may still sell the data it's collected.

Microsoft’s latest Skype ad promotes Apple gear

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 14, 2014

Microsoft Canada on Friday published an interesting commercial on its Facebook Page depicting “the world's first wireless orchestra” comprised of New York City's celebrated subway musicians kept in sync with a remote conductor thanks to Skype.

The video features a bunch of Apple's MacBook Pro notebooks that run the Skype software, while iPhones make a few notable appearances as well.

Someone in Cupertino should send marketing wizards in Redmond a thank you note for advertising for Apple.

Details of Telltale’s upcoming game based on HBO’s Game of Thrones series leak

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 14, 2014

Before revealing the first story details and premier trailer of “Tales from the Borderlands”, its upcoming adventure game based on on Gearbox and 2K’s Borderlands 2, Telltale yesterday offered a glimpse into an upcoming “Game of Thrones” game based on HBO’s award-winning fantasy drama television series, itself adapted from of “A Song of Ice and Fire”, George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels.

Filing as another episodic adventure game, the game follows the storyline of House Forrester detailed in the book “A Dance with Dragons,” the fifth book of the series, with an interesting twist: players will be permitted to assume the role of any of the five members of House Forrester in various locations around Westeros and Essos.

Needless to say, your actions affect the rest of House Forrester. “Multiply the actions of one character by five, and you’re truly playing the Game of Thrones … where you win, or you die,” notes the blurb.

New Microsoft ad pits Lenovo’s Yoga 3 Pro convertible to MacBook Air

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 9, 2016

Microsoft's Windows channel on YouTube yesterday released a new commercial painting Lenovo's Yoga Pro 3 convertible laptop as a better portable computer overall than Apple's ultra-thin MacBook Air.

Titled 'Let's Dance', the 30-second commercial is critical of the Apple machine's lack of a touchscreen while praising multi-mode flexibility of the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, concluding that once you add the touchscreen to the mix, “it’s game over” because the Yoga 3 Pro proves there’s “more than one way to do what you want”.

MasterCard promotes Apple Pay in TV commercials

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

MasterCard, one of Apple's launch partners for Apple Pay, has begun airing new television commercials during last night's Game 1 highlighting Apple's mobile payments service, which became available at more than 220,000 locations in the United States with the release of iOS 8.1 this Monday.

“Fans who use their MasterCard with Apple Pay are enjoying priceless surprises, even at the World Series,” the voiceover can be heard saying. And what exactly might those “priceless surprises” be?

How about tickets to the games and even “meeting a baseball legend” such as George Brett and other “once in a lifetime experiences”?

Jump past the fold to watch the ads now.

Apple posts two new iPhone 6 ads: “Cameras” and “Huge”

Cody Lee ∙ September 22, 2014

Apple has posted two new iPhone 6 ads to its YouTube channel. The commercials are titled "Cameras" and "Huge," and they highlight some of the benefits of the updated cameras and larger displays found on the recently-launched handsets.

The two videos are very much inline with the spots we saw during the iPhone 6 event, in that they feature voice overs done by celebrities Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon running down various new features of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.