Comments

Does that mean you're a "Mac User," Tom? For some reason, I had you pegged as a "PC guy." Not really sure why. Good point, however. I don't like hearing voices when I don't have to, either. All best, Ed

Posted by Ed Delia at May 15, 2006 5:45 PM

Great point for most businesses here, make sure what you do is not going to irritate... and this one has with at least one person we know of, how many others are out there finding this a nuisance.

I wonder if they tested the idea first...

Cheers

Posted by Steve Gray at May 15, 2006 5:53 PM

You can turn this of. Go to System preferences (or something similar on a PC), click Quicktime, and uncheck 'Play movies automatically'. Downside is that if the webdesigner desides to hide the playerbuttons, you can not play the movie at all. This is considerd to be bad practice, but Apple does it often. Wel, at least you have a choise. Finn.

Posted by Finn at May 15, 2006 6:00 PM

I'm with you, Mr. Y.

I've gotten so tired of unsolicited animated visual plaque that I use the Firefox add-on FlashBlock. Puts up a little button I can press to watch if I choose. Doesn't always work, but works to spec often enough that I've never regretted having in set to "block".

That way, you could, if you chose to, leave whatever noisy pages bug you in your home-set without having them suck up bandwidth.

Posted by jeff angus at May 15, 2006 6:22 PM

Ed .. Tom is still a PC guy. I, Steve, did a 10 year PC tour, and went back to mac last year. Maybe we can get Tom to switch? (Despite the irritating Quicktime video ... nothing Apple can do can make them 1% as bad as Dell)

Posted by Steve Yastrow at May 15, 2006 8:06 PM

This is on the topic of irritating your customers, but in the airline business. I was recently in a major aiport and overheard a conversation of two airline workers. Their airline had merged with another. They were discussing the difference in the pretzel consumption of the two former airlines. One worker pointed out, in admiring terms, how much money the other legacy airline saved because their pretzels were often refused by the customers. I took note--someone thinks the airline results will be improved when customers refuse to eat the food!

Posted by Richard at May 15, 2006 9:46 PM

Richard - It had to be US Air and America West. My guess is that US Air had the crappier pretzels, because they do everything worse than every other airline.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at May 15, 2006 10:11 PM

I just went to apple.com (shut off the sound) and went to the website feedback section. I asked them to come respond. We'll see.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at May 15, 2006 10:15 PM

It's a fair point. I love those adds (though not quite as much as I like tabbed browsing in Firefox); however, I despise any site with auto-playing audio. The profile songs on MySpace drive me bat$#!+ (though I do have one on mine...sigh.)

I do love Apple's marketing in general (I have a homebrew, "Here's to the crazy ones..." poster on my wall), and marketing is important...but it's never a good sign when someone decides the world needs their adverts as much as they need the product.

Posted by Max Leibman at May 15, 2006 10:54 PM

Steve,

Here's a better link, sans movies. You can't blame Apple for trying to hammer home the whole switch campaign. And I'm sure they know it's much tougher for them to lose their customers. Must be nice.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/

Posted by Paul Davidson at May 16, 2006 2:22 AM

On the other hand, maybe Apple are just trying out new ideas and aiming to be out there, on the edge, at the front. As usual. Isn't the real test of this whether they pick up the user animosity and react to it?

Posted by Mark JF at May 16, 2006 7:28 AM

I had this exact same thing happen to me, i had both my mac & pc's start page to apple...now they are no more b/c my computers are too old and slow to have some stupid video playing

Posted by Ben at May 16, 2006 7:44 AM

Firefox is great ,much better than IE new beta version.Apple is a great brand and they know it,a bit of arrogance is the difference between uber cool product and when will they shut up.

Posted by gavan at May 16, 2006 8:13 AM

Mark - why is it "on the edge" to make people watch your TV commercial? My guess is that will miss the user animosity, because this is a small moment of inward focus for them.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at May 16, 2006 8:14 AM

Vonage has THE most annoying ads with yoo hoo yoo hoo hoo - can't flip the channel fast enough ...

Posted by Sean at May 16, 2006 8:22 AM

Steve - my point is that they're experimenting with technology. You or I might find it intrusive and thus a bad use of technology because it puts us off the brand. However, they might be thinking that this kind of technology will become taken for granted in time. Neon signs were once seen as visual pollution and roadside hoardings were seen as distracting but both have now become taken for granted. The key thing, to my mind, is if Apple will seek and respond to user feedback. If not, then it is bad marketing. If yes, it could be a classic case of Tom's "Ready, fire, aim" mantra.

Posted by Mark JF at May 16, 2006 9:02 AM

new Macbooks have replaced that annoying ad! HUZZAH!

Posted by Ben at May 16, 2006 2:31 PM

Neon signs were once seen as visual pollution and roadside hoardings were seen as distracting but both have now become taken for granted.

I think you are making a big assumption here Mark. Being taken for granted (or apathetic about doing anything about them) does not equal people actually wanting them there

Posted by PaulH at May 17, 2006 5:37 AM

It's not just the Apple ads. It's ads in general ... no - even worse - it's the internet in general!

It's the entire "converging multimedia experience" thing going on.

It's the general assumption, that since I choose to access a certain website, the owner of said site obtains the right to attack every sensory organ available.

Having NO knowledge about WHY I choose to go to their site, WHAT I'm looking for at their site and HOW I prefer to assimilate knowledge, THEY decide that I am available at their mercy and proceed to bombard me with "information" (Yeah - I wish).

It's flash-based banner ads triggered by mouse-over instead of activating clicks, luring you into the "benefits" of a multimedia entertainment experience.

Some places, it appears to be acceptable to access my PC's controls to TURN UP THE VOLUME before playing whatever irellevant ad is the "choice du jour".

It's not unlike the kids in kindergarten competing for attention by screaming at the top of their lungs.

It's "attention-SPAMMING", and the marketing departments love it, just as they would have loved "conventional" spamming, had it not been so bad in terms of business ethics. Not too many years ago, plenty of 'credible' companies used unsolicited e-mail 'attacks' to expand their customer base. This is the 'choice du jour', and will be so until outlawed or replaced by something better.

What will be next? Subliminal messages flashing on screen? You can already get that for your personal PC. Porting that to DHTML and web pages should be so easy that ... well ... it's probably already happening out there!
It's banned from TV, but who regulates that webpage running on a server in some pacific island state?

Posted by Lars Olufsen at May 17, 2006 8:57 AM

PaulH - I fully agree but in this context the point is that they're a generally accepted "feature" of our lives. We might not all like them but they're there and they're not about to go away.

Lars - well, yes, but to a point. I think there's a big difference between a company that chooses to put its own ads on its own web site and one that bombards you with 3rd party adverts. The former I dislike but tend to regard as a fact of using their web site; the latter drive me nuts!

Posted by MarkJF at May 17, 2006 10:10 AM

Auto-play ads, audio, and animation are all symptoms of old-school TV thinking.

Old-school TV thinking is linear - marketers expect you're only watching one show at a time, straight through. That's why commercials still air. Using the original TV model, you're expected to sit through commercials, instead of switching channels or fast-forwarding with a DVR.

Old-school TV thinking is modal - but computer use is non-modal. The great thing about computers is that you can do many things at once - or switch between them.

That's why play-on-load makes little sense to us - but makes plenty of sense to the marketers still stuck in a 1950s view of advertising.

Posted by Jonathan Cohen at May 17, 2006 1:42 PM

I had absolutely the same thing, but just quickly went to any other page inside apple.com just not to see that again.

Posted by Askar at May 18, 2006 5:06 PM

Jonathan is right about the 1950's mindset. I call it "Brute Force Branding" in Brand Harmony.

get viagra no prescription Posted by Steve Yastrow at May 19, 2006 9:20 AM viagra online ordering

It seems like Apple is out of touch with its customers. The celebration of your own success as a company is OK – exposing everyone who has chosen your site as start page to your latest success in advertising is not! This, to me, looks like one of the first signs of a company heading towards the “death cycle”.
The “death cycle” is what happens when bureaucracy and arrogance takes over a successful company. I’ve often come across smug, arrogant leaders of large companies whose primary concerns are the next pay check and the happiness of the shareholders.
When a small company strives for success everyone is conscious about “being in the same boat”. Therefore everyone puts in the extra hours and the growth is regarded as a result of combined efforts – everyone is part of the team.
As the company expands, the distance between the leaders and the workforce grows as does the day to day contact with the customers. When you loose touch with your costumers you loose touch with the foundation of your success. You have no way of knowing what’s in demand – be it new products or adjustments to the existing range. This is why bureaucracy must be fought in every way possible. If you want to join me in the war, I invite you to visit my blog www.thesecondcycle.com.

Posted by Lars Kolind at May 19, 2006 12:20 PM

Steve,

If its news you want, why not bookmark
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ ?

Or better yet, just pick up their RSS feed
http://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/hotnews.rss

Posted by eric gockel at May 19, 2006 6:23 PM

Excellent point. Far too frequently forgoten, too.

Posted by Daniel M. Harrison at May 20, 2006 5:05 AM

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One of the first things I did when I got my iBook last year was to set my home page to the BBC's page. No problems, no hassles - and I even get the weather forecast tailored to my own postcode...

Cheers from the UK

Keith

Posted by Keith Rickaby at May 21, 2006 5:39 PM

@Lars Kolind,

Not disputing your comment at all, but do you seriously consider the Apple ads a sign of problems within Apple?

I find it hard to believe that the reach is so deep.

I find it much more plausible, that this is a problem, founded in the "All things Apple = cool" tendency of the market today.

From a pure marketing perspective, when was the last time Apple "got it wrong"? Surely it's not in recent days. And thus the Apple marketing people assume that anything branded with the Apple logo will be accepted (if not loved) by the recipient.

Of course, you can call that 'losing touch with your customers', so you might be right afterall. :o)

Posted by Lars Olufsen at May 22, 2006 6:50 AM