Steve Jobs has been called a bit of a control freak before, and now apparently it’s contributed to the loss of a customer. Here’s the report from the Business Insider:
Adidas supposedly pulled its $10+ million ad campaign from the iAd program because Apple CEOÂ Steve Jobs was being too much of a control freak. According to one industry exec, Adidas decided to cancel its iAds after Apple rejected its creative concept for the third time.
In an effort to dial up ad quality, Apple has taken more control over iAds than any other program in the industry, including making the actual ads themselves. As the WSJ chronicled in August, this has caused some stress between Apple and ad agencies.
This has contributed to a very slow rollout of iAds — good luck finding many premium brand ads in iAd inventory.
This makes sense, because I’d be hard pressed to say that I’ve seen an iAd in the flesh, and I’m not sure when I’ll happen to come across one. Regardless, this is just one customer, and there are many more out there for Apple. Thing is, if this becomes a trend, then it doesn’t look like iAds will do very well.
One thought on “Adidas Pulls Out on iAds, Claims Steve is the Problem”
I’ve actually seen dozens (perhaps hundreds) of iAds across a few iPhone apps like Pandora, iRovr, and a few more obscure ones.
Truth be told the vast majority seem to be advertising iPhone apps (both premium and free) while a few are your total multimedia experience apps.
Personally I do NOT like iAds that are heavy into multimedia, as they ruin ones current app experience and drain your battery (as they are a lot “heavier” than a traditional Google ad).
It would be wiser for companies not marketing iPhone apps to skip iAds together, as I do not see much usefulness from them.