“Designed by Apple” is the third and newest spot in TBWA\Media Arts Lab’s recent reinvention of Apple’s TV ads. The first two, “Photos Every Day” and “Music Every Day” offered a refreshing take on the iPhone, moving it out of Apple’s white world and into the real world. It seemed as though Apple was hitting its stride, until today.
Now, it’s difficult for tech companies to do sentimentality, but it’s not unprecedented (see Google). But, “Designed by Apple” is trying so damn hard to make you feel anything that it misses the mark by a mile. Perhaps it’s watching grown men absolutely lose their shit when Tim Cook mentioned “Finder windows” during yesterday’s Worldwide Developer Conference yesterday, or have the press react to Jonathan Ive’s pastel-tinged redesign of iOS as though it was 2013’s answer to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This is so saccharine that it’s silly.
Maybe the most misguided part is the tagline, “Designed by Apple in California” (check out the web video here). After all, as anyone who’s ever owned an Apple product knows, the words “Assembled in China” always immediately follow that statement on every device.