Intel Inside

Dull little boxes, dutily performing dull little tasks…

Apple are all about their marketing. A huge part their success can be directly attributed to building average products, kicking them off with a meticulously conceived and flawlessly executed marketing campaigns and then incrementally improving them over a number of revisions. By the time revision 2 (or 3 or 4) comes around, they’re no longer average products, they’re fantastic products. The Apple brand and their marketing machine are the two of most powerful weapons in Steve Jobs’ towering brushed-metal artifice. Screwing up their marketing is something Apple very, very rarely does.

This makes their latest campaign for their super fancy MacBook Pro Intel-chip based laptop all the more interesting. It turns out their beautifully shot but horribly executed TV spot (it’s gorgeous to look at, but the arrogant copy and cringe-worthy voiceover destroy the ad) is a shot-for-shot copy of The Postal Service’s video for Such Great Heights. Have a look at this side-by-side comparison for a feeling of just how similar, nay identical, they are.

Surprise, surprise, with a bit of digging it seem that both videos were done by the same directorial team. So, a few questions. One, did Apple see the “Heights” video, realise the suitability of the imagery and then hire the directors with the explicit intention of recreating the video or is it merely a case of lazy filmmakers reusing old material? Two, is there any intellectual property liability here. Who owns the idea, the company that created it or the band they sold it to?

Regardless, The Postal Service are not amused:

It has recently come to our attention that Apple Computers’ new television commercial for the Intel chip features a shot-for-shot recreation of our video for ‘Such Great Heights’ made by the same filmmakers responsible for the original. We did not approve this commercialization and are extremely disappointed with both parties that this was executed without our consultation or consent. -Ben Gibbard, The Postal Service

And one last little bit of zealotry. Gruber, who is usually one of the more reasonable of the Mac pundits, has this to say about the ad:

Even if the same directing team hadn’t been involved in Apple’s ad, it clearly isn’t a rip-off. Are there similar shots? Yes, definitely. But the tones are completely different. The video is good; the commercial is great.

Okay John, if you say so.

Posted in Tech on Sunday January 22, 2006.