Apple Watch Ad Quietly Features World's Top Boxer
I’ll admit it: I didn’t watch all the new Apple Watch ads when they came out. And who can blame me? Sure, it’s my job and all, but every commercial out of Cupertino touting the wearable has been unmitigated garbage. So I took a pass on Abdel’s roundup.
And I’m mostly glad I did.
Because I just watched them all, and they’re horrible. Here’s why, per Creativity-Online:
We can’t help wonder if the influence of Apple’s big name fashion hires is spilling over into the marketing. Since Apple’s appointment of Burberry CEO in October 2013, the company has added other industry talent including YSL’s Paul Deneve and Catherine Monier, designer Marc Newson and Marcela Aguilar, former senior global director of marketing communications at Gap Inc.
I’ve certainly criticized these folks enough (or, at least, their nominal leader), so I’ll skip that. Instead, I’ll simply mention that I dont think this melding of fashion and tech is going to be pervasively compelling for the general consumer public. When it comes to spending big bucks, more people care more about fancy electronics than fancy fabrics. Eventually, these spots are going to have to be about what Apple Watch can do that iPhone can’t. That hasn’t happened yet.
Still, one of the Apple Watch ads caught my eye — not because of how good it was (or wasn’t), but because of who Apple got to “model” for the thing: Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin.
Dubbed “Train,” this attempt at art shows the world’s fiercest boxer (and perhaps the planet’s best athlete) demonstrating his actual art. If you don’t know, Golovkin — better known by his initials “GGG” — is an undefeated middleweight with the highest KO rate in division history. He has several belts, but he isn’t lineal champ (yet), largely because Miguel Cotto refuses to fight him. I’m thinking that has something to do with this:
Back in Steve Jobs’ salad days, Apple had Golovkin’s swagger. I doubt the above ad will help the company recover any of that, but I certainly wish they’d take a page out of GGG’s book and start stomping again:
“And for me, it’s more important like, beat him like punish him. Beat him, beat him, beat him.
“He understands, he has best mouth. He understand, this is boxing. Please respect boxing. Respect sport. Not this streetfight.
“You want streetfight? Let’s go. I show you. Right now. We have time. We have 12 rounds. I show, every round.
Golovkin is the best in the world at what he does. And he knows it. He projects it.
I dont like the new, neutered Apple.
And I’m getting awfully impatient with my new, neutered Apple Watch.
[Note: GGG fights Canadian David Lemieux in a title unification bout this Saturday on HBO PPV with undercards starting at 9:00 PM EST.]