Apple protests too much about Android in switch campaign

Gadget giant Apple is no stranger to adversarial marketing and has recently trained its sights on Android in a series of petulant video ads.

Apart from being a not very subtle attempt at consumer brainwashing, the purpose of this campaign is to drive people to a new part of the Apple site designed to encourage and facilitate switching to Apple from other mobile platforms. Since the mobile market is now essentially an OS duopoly, that means Android.

The first lot of videos were released on YouTube a week ago to coincide with the launch of the switching site. Without any substantiation they infer processing speed, privacy, photos and music are somehow superior on the iPhone and the most recent ones reiterate claimed advantages in performance and security. You can see them all below.

This campaign is reminiscent of the Mac vs Windows ones that ran back when that dichotomy seemed to matter. In case you forgot they featured a fat, dorky, uncool bloke who was supposed to personify Windows and a slim, good-looking, cool one to personify Apple. Both campaigns reflect both how Apple perceives itself and the claimed ego benefits consumers get from being part of the Apple family.

Leaving aside the petty superciliousness that so often characterises Apple marketing, the underlying strategy is sound. Such growth as Apple has been able to achieve for the iPhone from underlying market growth seems to have been exhausted, so the only remaining source of customers would appear to be Android users.

Unfortunately for Apple the vast majority of them are buying devices far cheaper than the cheapest iPhone, so unless that issue is addressed it’s hard to see how this campaign providing a significant boost to iPhone shipments. At the same time the tone of the ads risks antagonising some consumers and making them hostile to the Apple brand – presumably the exact opposite of what Apple is hoping.