Filip Novotny In advertising and marketing in general, Apple is often exemplified as one of the best in the business, and often beyond. However, as it now appears, Apple's now-legendary partnership with advertising agency TBWAMedia Arts Lab has suffered serious cracks in recent months. Apple's head of marketing, Phil Schiller, was not at all satisfied with the agency's results and was furious…
The unpleasant fact came to light in the ongoing legal dispute between Apple and Samsung, in which the South Korean company presented authentic e-mails that Schiller exchanged with representatives of TBWAMedia Arts Lab.
Relations between Apple and the advertising agency, which produced several iconic ads for the California-based Mac and iPhone maker, soured at the beginning of last year. That's when he came The Wall Street Journal with an article headlined "Has Apple lost its cool at the expense of Samsung?" (in the original "Has Apple Lost Its Cool To Samsung?"). Its content suggested that the cooperation between the mentioned companies may not be as fruitful as before.
In the correspondence attached below, it was then shown that even the advertising agency itself, which had worked with Apple for many years and knew its products and strategies like few others, followed the popular rhetoric of journalists that things are going downhill with Apple. The year 2013 was compared by its representatives to 1997, when the Californian company was on the verge of bankruptcy, which certainly cannot be said about last year. That's why Phil Schiller reacted very irritated.
Jan 25, 2013 Philip Schiller
We have a lot to do to turn this to our advantage….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323854904578264090074879024.html
Has Apple Lost Its Cool to Samsung?
by Ian Sherr and Evan Ramstad
Here's a comprehensive response from marketing agency TBWA. Its executive, James Vincent, compares the iPhone promotion problem to the predicament Apple found itself in in 1997. The editing side is also notable in the case of Vincent's emails.
phil,
I agree with you. we feel that way too. we fully understand that criticism is in order at this time. a flood of different circumstances casts a really negative light on apple.
in the last few days we've started working on some bigger ideas where advertising could help change things for the better, especially if we work within the larger plan of the company.
we would like to propose several fundamental changes to our work in the coming weeks to respond to the enormous challenge we face.
we have to discuss 3 big areas..
1. our company-wide response:
it is obvious that the questions towards apple exist on different levels and are presented as such. the biggest of them are ..
a) society's behavior - how should we behave? (lawsuits, China/US manufacturing, excessive wealth, dividend)
b) product roadmap – what is our next innovation? .. (larger displays, new software look, maps, product cycles)
c) advertising - change the conversation? (difference of iPhone 5, approach to competition, decline of the apple brand)
d) sales approach - new tactics? (use of operators, in-store, rewards for sellers, retail strategy)
we would like to propose convening a crisis meeting for this week, similar to what happened in the case of antenna-gate. maybe it would work instead of marcom (regular meeting on the topic of marketing communication), along with tim, jony, katie, hiroki and anyone else you think should be there.
elena instructed her teams for this week to think through all aspects that threaten the attractiveness of the apple brand before the next meeting. even before the meeting we can discuss everything more in order to start a broad discussion about problems and their solutions.
2. a new way of experimenting with big ideas
we understand that this situation is very similar to 1997 in the sense that advertising has to help apple out of it. we understand that and we are happy for this huge opportunity.
it seems that the times call for more open and inclusive ways of experimenting with ideas. honestly, marcom's management style sometimes makes it impossible for us to try ideas that we think are right. we have two rather big ideas at the level of the entire brand that we would very much like to try, but it is not possible to only talk about them at marcom. it is simply necessary to get into them straight away. it's a bit like the nike model where they do a few things and only then choose what they finally implement. I think this is exactly what is needed at the moment.
but at the same time, we agree that marcom needs to strengthen the formation of our positions and strategies, which we would present directly in the product calendar, in order to better understand the overall tactics that will be gradually built upon.
3. regular mini-marcom meeting
we think that it is necessary to introduce a regular meeting between our team and hiroki's team, so that we can coordinate campaigns and especially negotiations with operators, and then we would create campaigns that will work correctly in all apple media. so if we agreed on one idea for the campaign, for example "people love their iPhones", all apple media from apple.com to retail would take on different parts of the campaign and build individual arguments, similar to how hiroki mentioned the mac vs pc campaign and "get a mac".
While TBWA is proposing major changes to Apple's marketing strategy following the breakout year of 1997, Phil Schiller disagrees with the move. He sees a highly successful company that does not have a problem with products, but with their proper promotion.
Jan 26, 2013 Philip Schiller
Your answer quite shocks me.
At the last Marcom, we played the launch video of the iPhone 5 and listened to a presentation about the competitor's product marketing. We discussed that the iPhone as a product and its subsequent sales success is much better than people think it is. Purely marketing stuff.
Your suggestion that we start running Apple in a radically different way is a shocking response. Also, the suggestion that we give you more leeway to spend money on ideas you haven't even tried to pitch to Marcom yet is outrageous. We meet every week to discuss whatever we need, we don't limit you in any way in the content or the way of discussion, we even go to your workplace for all-day meetings.
This is not 1997. The current state of affairs is nothing like it. In 1997, Apple had no products to promote. We had a company here that was making so little that it could have gone bankrupt within 6 months. It was a dying, lonely Apple that needed a reboot that would take several years. It wasn't the world's most successful technology company with the best products, creating the smartphone and tablet market and leading content and software distribution. It was not a company that everyone wants to copy and compete with.
Yes, I'm shocked. This doesn't really sound like a path to creating great iPhone and iPad ads that everyone inside and outside of Apple is proud of. This is what is wanted from us.
In this conversation we see Phil Schiller in an unprecedented role; we know Apple's marketing chief only from the presentations of new products, where he presents his company's past and future successes with a smile and mocks those who do not believe in Apple's innovation. Even James Vincent was surprised by his sharp reaction:
phile & team,
Please accept my apology. this really wasn't my intention. I read your email again and I understand why you feel that way.
I was trying to answer your broader question about marcom, do I see any new ways of working that might help, so I threw in a few suggestions and also looked at all the aspects that touch the customers so that we can create in a coordinated way, like was in the case of mac vs pc. I certainly didn't mean it as a criticism of Apple itself.
we are fully aware of our responsibilities in this matter. we feel 100% responsible for our part of the job, which is creating great ads for apple and its great products. the iPhone 5 briefing you presented at marcom last week was extremely helpful, and our teams are working this weekend on a number of aspects directly inspired by the briefing.
I admit my reaction was over the top and didn't help matters one bit. I am sorry.
After one of the "marcom" meetings, Phil Schiller praises the marketing success of the iPad, but he also has a kind word for competitor Samsung. According to him, the Korean company has worse products, but lately it has handled advertising perfectly.
James,
yesterday we made good progress with iPad marketing. It's bad for the iPhone.
Your team often comes up with in-depth analysis, stimulating briefings and great creative work that makes us feel we are on the right track. Unfortunately, I can't say that I feel the same way about the iPhone.
I was watching Samsung's TV ad before the Superbowl today. She's really good and I can't help it - those guys just know (much like an athlete who is in the right place at the right time) while here we are struggling with iPhone marketing. This is sad because we have much better products than them.
Maybe you feel differently. We should call each other again if that helps. We can also come to you next week if that would help.
We have to change something drastically. And quickly.
Phil
I understand Phil's reaction. I was also surprised by what the guy in the commercial was talking about. Otherwise, I have to say that these leaks of emails from the court and leaks from Apple do not do a good service at all.