According to a new report from The Information, Apple employees are divided about whether or not adding more adverts to the iPhone’s interface detracts from the company’s premium offering to customers. The Information’s in-depth story delves into the inner workings of Apple’s advertising team and the company’s growing anxiety that its ad business is expanding too rapidly.
The article claims that Apple prohibits its advertising salesmen from using certain words and phrases while discussing the company’s advertising business. Instead of “targeting,” “audience refining” and “platform” should be used by salespeople, as should “competitor keywords” and “brand defenses” in place of “conquesting.”
In response to The Information’s request for comment on the list of banned words, an Apple spokesperson explained that the company encourages employees to use language that is appropriate to Apple’s offerings and that terms like “targeting” do not apply because Apple does not allow advertisers to target specific users.
Apple claims that in order to protect user privacy, it does not let advertisers target a demographic of less than 5,000 individuals. While Apple presents a unified face to the public on advertisements, particularly those in the App Store designed to help developers acquire more users and customers find more apps, inside feedback from staff indicates widespread dissatisfaction.
At least seven Apple advertising team members expressed concern in company-wide chatrooms that Apple is putting too much emphasis on the ad business, which they fear may detract from the premium iPhone experience. According to the story, Apple planned to start displaying adverts in iOS’s Spotlight search in 2018, but the idea was reportedly scrapped due to anticipated internal opposition.
According to the study, some managers in Apple’s advertising department have previously encouraged salespeople to sell ad chances to other companies using terms that were less related to their apps but were less expensive than other keywords. Salespeople felt alienated by the requirements of managers, and the fact that Apple’s marketing team had no access to developers’ App Store contact information or financial details didn’t help matters.
Developers, customers, and Apple critics have all spoken out against Apple’s proposed ad expansion in the App Store over the past few weeks. Advertising on Apple Maps and Apple TV+ is also rumored to be on the company’s horizon. A source close to the situation stated in the report that Apple has no plans to expand its advertising company to the level of Meta or Google.
However, such lofty ambitions don’t appear to be met with much enthusiasm within Apple at the moment. A source close to Apple’s advertising division has stated that the company has no plans to create an advertising network on par with that of its competitors, which would allow it to deliver adverts to consumers outside of its own apps and services.
According to the source, Apple’s advertising executives are satisfied with the income growth generated by the company’s current ad spots and have no plans to drastically increase the number of ads displayed on iPhones. After a shaky launch last month,
Apple has temporarily halted ads in certain sections of the App Store, and the company has not announced any plans to expand ads to other services. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple’s advertising boss, Todd Teresi, has a goal of tripling the company’s yearly ad income to $10 billion from the current $4 billion.
