Steve Jobs' Last Big Failure: iAds

In recent years, it seemed that Steve Jobs could do no wrong. Whether it was the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad--you name it--the late Apple cofounder and chairman had the golden touch.

Then there's iAd.

The mobile advertising service, introduced almost a year and a half ago, was supposed to launch Apple into the ad business by helping marketers reach people within apps on Apple devices. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the service has been a dud. (Indeed, that was becoming apparent months ago, according to Bloomberg, and the head of iAds left in August, AllThingsD reported.) In any case, the travails have forced Apple into the unfamiliar role of making compromises on price in an attempt to revive iAd.

Will that be enough? I'm doubtful. For one thing, advertising is inherently a messy business, one that isn't easily contained in Apple's gleaming, controlled universe. I can only hope that Apple (or Google or Facebook or someone else) eventually manages to push some portion of the ad industry into creating more compelling, less annoying, more effective and even beautiful ads. But people can be influenced in a lot of ways, not all of them beautiful. And if annoying, intrusive advertising still works--and, sorry, Apple, but it does--marketers are going to run annoying, intrusive, ugly ads elsewhere.

What's more, Apple has limited itself to its own platform, and no matter how well the company is doing, it hasn't eaten the entire mobile device world. Nor will it. Indeed, Google's Android is gaining on Apple's iOS--and Google, which also happens to run the most successful advertising business online, is only too happy to run more ads on any device with a browser. As a result, Google's mobile ad revenues are now at a $2.5 billion run rate. Even Millennial Media, a company you've probably never heard of, topped Apple's mobile ad market share recently, according to IDC.

But the main reason for iAd's failure so far is that, for the umpteenth time, Madison Avenue ad folks don't want Silicon Valley to tell them how to market to consumers. And if they can't run the ads they want to run on iPhones and iPads and iPod Touches, well, they're happy to run them on Android devices. Or on Facebook. Or on TV, for that matter.

The geeks in Silicon Valley like to think they're too smart to be influenced by advertising--at least the kind of advertising that exists today--and that therefore advertising doesn't really work. They're wrong. And of all tech companies, Apple--justly renowned for many of its ad campaigns--should know that. Until Apple loses some of the arrogance that has been the hallmark of the iAd service from the start, it's going to fail to fulfill Steve Jobs' hope to reinvent advertising in the age of the app.