

Long copy isn't back - chestnut-tree
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/july/apple-long-copy-ads

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mikecane
When I saw the ad on TV, I thought it was egregiously self-congratulatory. It
should have never escaped the WWDC. It's something to show in-house to rally
the troops. Out in the world, it's just self-flattery and has a smug tone.

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asperous
I don't know if this applies or is true: but I once heard that soft (non-
informative) car ads are run not to advertise their product, but to make
people to recently bought or own that brand feel good about their decision.

Considering how many people own an Apple product, it's possible that the ads
are just to make those people feel more loyal to the brand.

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networked
>I once heard that soft (non-informative) car ads are run not to advertise
their product, but to make people to recently bought or own that brand feel
good about their decision

Interesting concept, but couldn't you make ads that do both? I feel like the
"Think small" ad [1] must have worked both for people who were looking to
purchase a car at the time and those who'd already bought a Volkswagen.

[1]
[http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2013/07/think...](http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2013/07/think_small_0.jpg)

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ulisesrmzroche
It did, it's one of the most successful ads in existence. The trick is that
the headline and picture grabbed your attention, and then they sold nothing
but facts about the product.

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alex_c
I'll play devil's advocate and ask: how is this different from the celebrated
"Here's to the crazy ones" ads? Granted, these ads are more bland and
forgettable, but that's a difference of degree, not kind.

Compare:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjgtLSHhTPg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjgtLSHhTPg)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=170fh2mvog0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=170fh2mvog0)

Both are content-free, vague, feel good ads. I feel like all the criticism in
the article would also apply to "Here's to the crazy ones", perhaps even more
so - at least the new ads actually outline Apple's design philosophy, while
the older ad really has nothing to do with... well, anything.

So I'll grant that the execution in the new ad falls somewhat short, but does
that simply mean the ads don't go _far enough_ with vacuous feel-good stuff?

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mikecane
Because the Crazy Ones was a salute to those people. This new ad sounds like
Apple saluting itself.

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tptacek
This is _great_. Step back from the Apple-specific nature of it and just read
it as a "how-to" guide for writing content. Look at that Tesco ad! Really! I'm
serious! I really mean it! The worst!

I hadn't paid any attention to the words in those Apple ads, and now I know
why.

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cytokine_storm
I actually felt the tesco ad was marginally better than the apple ad. It's
still very vague but at least attempts to convince the reader they are doing
something about the horse meat scandal, albeit, not particularly convincingly.

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Mithaldu
So, i've read the term long copy about 5 times now, and still have no damn
clue what the hell it is. Is it too much to ask for someone to have _some_
awareness of whether a domain-specific term they're using might be entirely
unknown to the average public and spend at least one sentence explaining it?
(Or, you know, this being the internet with hypertext and all that jazz
invented in the 90s, link to an explanation they deem correct.)

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GuiA
long copy ad = ad that has a significant amount of text (i.e. where you
actually need to stop and read at the text, vs. ads that only have 5 words
that your brain parses with the rest of the ad)

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stephengillie
Oh, so long copy = tl;dr?

I know marketing types will agonize over each line like poets imagining
dramatic public approval, but most people will only see the words "Made by
Apple in California", which brings about a "well, duh" moment, at least to me.

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habitue
No long copy is the wall of text in a magazine ad. The exact opposite of
tl;dr. It was more prevalent in the past, and you don't see it any more.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
You still see it everywhere in advertising, think of informercials for
example, or high quality ads in magazines.

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arrrg
I don’t think long copy is due for a return. The reason it’s dead has less to
do with fashion and more with practical reasons. Today it’s really easy to
search out all the information you want to. It’s not necessary to pack all
that stuff into an ad.

(Another possible reason might be widespread testing of ads based on very
simple metrics. I would imagine that less complex ads that have more space to
show something other than just indistinct text might score better when it
comes to recall and people linking the ad to the correct brand. Also, that
wall of text might be a great benefit to the few people who are already really
excited about the advertised company or product, but the rest – and what might
be an overwhelming majority – will probably just ignore it. And so it gets
real hard to see any impact – even though the impact might very well be there
for those few who really engage with the copy. Or not. You would have to test
that.)

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ulisesrmzroche
Why would you want to lose your reader's attention by sending them to another
page? That kills how much you sell with that ad. The prospect may choose to
learn more about your ad, but you don't want to lose their attention like
that.

Getting a half-sold prospect out of your page is just losing a customer.

Just look at an informercial for example, the copy can easily take over an
hour of narration.

Also, widespread testing of ads has been done for a very long time, it's not
like research in marketing has never been done before. Long-copy always sells
more than short copy. The trick is to write long copy well, which is not
something that everyone can do.

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ulisesrmzroche
If you are going to write long-copy, first make sure it's readable. This low-
contrast stuff is just never going to work.

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jrmg
The part the author picked out as vacuous was, to me, a main substantive theme
of the piece:

 _If you are busy making everything, How can you perfect anything?

We don't believe in coincidence. Or dumb luck. There are a thousand "no's" For
every "yes."_

That's an explanation for why Apple's product range is so small, and their
product releases so comparatively infrequent. That philosophy is what other
tech companies with their plethora of confusing, often poorly conceived
products lack.

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joeblau
If this is an Ad, what exactly is Apple trying to sell me?

I don't have a background in marketing, but I'm not sure how this is an
effective ad? I feel like todays consumers have short attention spans, care
about results over process, have an entire interent to get "facts" about
products, and primarily value videos/photos/audio over over text.

~~~
derefr
It seems to me, if they're saying anything, it's this:

> We have put the trademarked phrase "Designed by Apple in California" on our
> actual products. We work hard on them, we pick everything that goes into
> them and arrange it very precisely, and then we put our marque on it to let
> you know that this thing, this combination of parts, is something we approve
> of.

> There are a lot of products coming out of China and elsewhere that seem, on
> first glance, very similar to our stuff. But on closer inspection, they use
> inferior parts, they don't arrange them the same way, and of course, they
> don't use our software--you can only get that from us. Still, you might get
> confused, especially on the things that don't even have an Apple logo on
> them, like our tiny iPhone AC/USB adapters and so forth.

> Just look for "Designed by Apple in California." Like "Rolex" or any of
> those other high-value brands, we can sue anyone who puts that phrase on a
> product that isn't ours--so inevitably, it either won't be there on these
> weak parody-products, or it'll be an odd faux-image: something like
> "Designed by Appl in Cauliflower." † If you see that, put the product back
> on the shelf: the Apple brand got the recognition it has because of our
> commitment to perfection, and these products won't give you any of that.

...or, rather, that's what they _would_ probably say, if their PR-brand didn't
have a distinct flavor that precludes saying things like that. Instead, they
have to just remind people that their brand exists, and hope the subtext gets
through, brand-marque recognition goes up, and counterfeit purchases go down.

† I actually have a third-party 35W iPhone AC charger that says just this. It
works okay with my old 4th-gen iPod Nano; but somehow puts my iPhone 4 into a
mode where it thinks it's already charged (not the same as the "not charging"
mode when I plug it into an unpowered USB port on a hub, by the way.)

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Semiapies
It's a fair cop.

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stormbrew
Someone was definitely watching too much Mad Men.

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kbar13
yet another example of Apple abusing short "sentences" and an overuse of
arbitrary periods?

