Apple's advertising is the clearest case study in what happens when a brand commits completely to a creative vision. From the Ridley Scott-directed '1984' Super Bowl spot that launched the Macintosh, to the 'Think Different' campaign that announced Steve Jobs' return, to the long-running silhouette iPod posters - every major Apple campaign has the quality of a manifesto. They don't advertise features; they advertise a way of seeing the world.
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Mystery, Solved
- Apple
The hunt for a lost object is staged as a suspense novel, with AirTag cast as the spoiler that skips to the last page and gives away where it is. The print work is built as book covers, and the digital executions trigger on proximity, so the whole idea rests on the pleasure of a mystery ending immed
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Airtag
- Apple
Apple launched AirTag by dramatising the search rather than the tracker. The insight: losing keys down the back of the sofa is a universally understood non-emergency, so the film sends a man on a full expedition into the world between the couch cushions, treating a few square feet of upholstery as u
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Unleashed: Pro Apps
- Apple · 2021
Apple's "Unleashed" pro-apps film: impossible digital creatures blooming into the real world dramatise the creative power the hardware and pro software let users unleash.
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Xfinity Mobile
- Apple · Goodby, Silverstein & Partners · 2019
Warm-lit boutique interior with shallow depth of field: a rack of neutral-toned knitwear and shirts (greys, cream, pale blue) hangs above a polished wood partition, while a round wooden stool in the foreground displays a burgundy suede ankle boot beside a white sneaker. Background shelving and a gla
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Peak Performance
- Apple · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2022
TBWA\\Media Arts Lab had to advertise a vapor chamber, a cooling part nobody can see, so the film turns thermal headroom into a physical sensation. A runner is grinding through desert heat when water falls from the sky and cools him, and the relief converts him into an unstoppable multitasker moving
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Smart x Apple Music with Ben&Ben
- Apple · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2022
A telecom spot for Smart's GigaLife x Apple Music tie-up with band Ben&Ben: the app on screen sells the perk - free music streaming bundled into the mobile plan.
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Apple Watch Series 9
- Apple · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2023
A spot for the Apple Watch Series 9: a person resting peacefully at home frames the watch as an always-on health and wellbeing companion, quietly looking after you even at rest.
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Introducing iPhone 11
- Apple · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2019
Apple's "Introducing iPhone 11": an extreme close-up of a human eye foregrounds vision and detail - showcasing the phone's camera and display through the organ they're built to rival.
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Clingers
- Apple · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2021
To make the abstract threat of data-tracking feel tangible, this campaign personifies trackers as real people. The core insight is that if you could see who was collecting your data, their behavior would be seen as intrusive and creepy. The creative idea literalizes this by showing a woman being fol
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Trigger Blocker | Taking Charge of Your Digital World
- Apple · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2023
A proposed iOS feature, Trigger Blocker, would let people strip diet-culture content out of their own feeds, telling the algorithm to stop serving weight-loss and body-comparison posts. The insight is that recommendation engines optimise for engagement, and for someone prone to disordered eating the
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Rebrand
- Apple TV · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2026
Apple TV dropped the plus from its name and took a deliberately physical route to the new identity. Rather than CGI, TBWA\\Media Arts Lab built the visual system from real glass slabs and coloured light shot in camera, with a custom typeface and a sonic logo composed by FINNEAS, so a streaming servi
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Everyone but Jon Hamm
- Apple TV+ · tbwa\chymedia · 2022
Jon Hamm scrolls Apple TV+ and finds everyone - Hanks, Holland, Eilish, Sudeikis - except himself, and complains about it to camera. TBWA\Media Arts Lab turned a service's best asset, its star roster, into a running joke told by the one star not on it. The insight: a celebrity list read out loud is
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The New Apple TV
- Apple TV · ign · 2022
A spot for the new Apple TV: a hand with the remote calling up a cinematic fantasy title positions the box as the hub that puts premium streaming and gaming at your fingertips.
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Apple TV is Now on Android
- Apple TV · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2025
Apple TV announces its arrival on Android by framing the platform switch as "the biggest plot twist yet," borrowing the cliffhanger language of its own dramas. The idea turns a distribution milestone into narrative theatre, using the brand's prestige catalogue as proof that the twist is worth watchi
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The Art of the Perfect Shot
- Apple TV · media arts lab · 2021
A montage of fifty-two "perfect shots" pulled from across Apple TV's slate, arguing that the platform's real signature is cinema-grade craft. By cutting single, exquisitely composed frames from titles like Severance, Killers of the Flower Moon and Slow Horses into one reel, it positions Apple TV as
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Behind the Mac: International Women's Day
- Apple · TBWA\Media Arts Lab · 2020
This work applies Apple's long-running "Behind the Mac" platform strategy to the cultural moment of International Women's Day. The core insight is that behind many of the world's most influential and disruptive women is a Mac helping bring their work to life. The creative idea is a rapid, black-and-
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R.I.P. Leon
- Apple · tbwa\media arts lab · 2022
Apple sought to promote the iPhone 14’s iOS 16 "Undo Send" feature by highlighting its utility during moments of extreme texting anxiety. The campaign taps into the universal dread of sending a premature, catastrophic text message that cannot be easily unsaid. In the spot, a pet sitter mistakenly te
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Fuzzy Feelings
- Apple · tbwa\media arts lab · 2024
A young woman ground down by a sour, unapproachable boss copes by secretly making a stop-motion film about him - animating him in felt and wool, shot on iPhone and cut on a MacBook Air - and in the act of reimagining him as a character she arrives at some sympathy for the man. The insight is that ma
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Ted Lasso: Fake Team. Real Partners.
- Apple · Media Arts Lab · 2023
To promote the third season of Apple TV+'s Ted Lasso, real brands - Nike, Nando's and others - were signed as genuine sponsors of AFC Richmond, the club that exists only inside the show, kitting the fictional team and selling real replica shirts. The insight is that fans of a beloved show already tr
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Flock
- Apple · tbwa\media arts lab · 2023
Camera drones swarm and follow people through their day like a flock of birds, until each person switches on an iPhone privacy feature and the drones drop out of the sky. The insight is that online tracking is tolerated only because it is invisible; made physical, airborne and noisy, it becomes into
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iPhone 12 & 12 Mini 5G
- Apple · TBWA\Chiat\Day · 2021
Apple set out to drive mass upgrades in a maturing smartphone market where consumers were holding onto their devices longer. The strategy turned abstract technical specs like 5G and a Ceramic Shield into a visceral, high-energy experience rather than dry product data. The creative idea physicalizes
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Dear Apple | Apple Watch
- Apple · tbwa\chymedia · 2026
Apple set out to reposition the Apple Watch from a luxury fitness accessory into an indispensable, life-saving health device. The strategy taps into the insight that raw, personal gratitude is far more persuasive than corporate product claims, leveraging the real letters sent to Apple by customers w
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Health with iPhone + Apple Watch
- Apple · tbwa\media arts lab · 2026
Apple frames the iPhone and Watch pairing as a way of noticing what your body is already telling you. Rather than leading on features, it presents heart rate, cycle tracking, cardio fitness and sleep quality as science-based readings that make an invisible daily signal legible.
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iPhone 17 | 3x More Scratch Resistant: Slide
- Apple · internal · 2026
A single-claim product film for Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple states is three times more scratch resistant. The whole spot is built to demonstrate that one property on the iPhone 17, Pro and Pro Max rather than to survey the phone.
What makes Apple's advertising enduring isn't the production values - it's the consistency of the idea. For decades the brand has asked a single question: what does it feel like to use something that genuinely works? The campaigns that answer that question most precisely are the ones worth studying. Start with '1984' and work forward.