New Apple 'Genius' Ads: Hit, Miss, or Insulting?
Apple debuts a new series of "Genius" ads during the Olympics, but not all are taking kindly to their treatment.
You know the feeling you get when you walk into an Apple store and see 30+ blue-shirt-clad employees staring at you, assessing every possible characteristic of yours (Sherlock-style) for a bit of insight as to how they can help you out?
Apple's transformed that feeling of helpfulness on a grandiose scale into a series of three commercials that started running during last night's coverage of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. In them, an Apple "genius" employee becomes a real-life assistant for a variety of scenarios – a cross between a living, walking embodiment of Siri, we suppose, and a personal care nurse.
Regardless, reactions to the commercials among tech pundits have been mixed, to put it nicely. As Business Insider's Jay Yarrow reports, descriptions of Apple's new commercials range from, "Not a fan," to "dreadful," to "terrible."
In the interests of fairness, Yarrow himself says the ads are just fine – "but I am clearly in the minority on this one," he admits.
As Digital Trends' Mike Flacy puts it, the new advertisements do a bit of a disservice to Apple's own customer base.
"The third advertisement shows a consumer that lacks the intelligence to research the difference between an Apple computer and any other brand of computer, but finally understands after the Apple genius shows him the error of his purchase," Flacy wrote.
"However, the man isn't portrayed as a complete bumbling buffoon, but rather someone that got suckered into purchasing a laptop that was supposed to be like a MacBook by an unscrupulous, slimy PC salesperson," he adds.
In case you're one of the few who didn't check out last night's Olympics coverage – this reporter included – we've posted all three Apple advertisements below.
What do you think? Are they funny and clever, or has Apple finally jumped the shark and made its own customer base look just as silly as the Apple employee who "saves the day" in each spot?
For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).