Following in the footsteps of Steve Jobs and other individuals in its Creative Hall of Fame (you probably didn’t know there was one but Walt Disney and Andy Warhol are other luminaries.)
But is such a memorial for brands a sign that they ain’t what they used to be? For decades the aim of marketing and advertising was to build such entities in the belief that their appeal and resilience would guarantee profitable growth for ever and ever, and a mutually beneficial agency relationship was the best way to ensure such a happy outcome.
And Apple, indeed, is a case in point. TBWA’s Media Arts Lab, mostly under the direction of Lee Chow, has laboured mightily and effectively for Apple since the Mac burst on the scene courtesy of Ridley Scott in 1984. Sometimes listed as the author of these works, at other times in the background as the work, mostly outstanding, is credited to in-house. And Apple since the iPhone, in case you hadn’t noticed, makes plenty of money. Salaried CEO Tim Cook, who’s now moving upstairs, is a billionaire.
Arguably, though, Apple is the exception rather than the rule and not just because it’s better at the advertising stuff than others. Brands are not as sacred as they used to be in an ad market dominated by Big Tech. Those companies that pour their ad dollars into the likes of Meta don’t care as much about their brands as the likes of Apple, although they doubtless profess to. All they’re really doing is buying eyeballs, direct marketing in old money even if they’re far from certain that most of the said eyeballs belong to people rather than bots. If it’s seemingly much cheaper rather than the time-consuming and often agonising business of branding then so be it. And, anyway, the chairman’s wife is hardly likely to notice.
Let’s hope the Brand Hall of Fame doesn’t turn out to be a mausoleum.
