AppleInsider Staff
Taking advantage of a traditionally large and young viewing audience, Apple during Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards debuted two Apple Music commercials featuring The Weeknd and a guest appearance by John Travolta.
Apple dedicated some of its VMA ad space to a two-part episodic narrative, both starring The Weeknd, touting the artist's music and shining a spotlight on Apple Music's user interface, namely playlist functions.
In the first minute-long spot we see The Weeknd exit stage right following a live performance and, grabbing the obligatory bottle of water, head straight out the backstage door to a waiting limo. After getting settled, he pulls out his iPhone — apparently running iOS 8 and no third-party apps — opens the Music app and taps over to Beats 1 radio.
Apple timed the commercial to run after The Weeknd's actual VMA performance, but you wouldn't know that unless you watched the show, so we get a brief expository voice over by DJ Zane Lowe. As Lowe puts on The Weeknd's hit "Can't Feel My Face," we cut to limo driver John Travolta asking, "Hey man, I'm driving, but where we going?" The afterparty, of course.
As promised, the second commercial picks up outside the afterparty, where we see The Weeknd exit Travolta's Uber and walk into a well-appointed flat slow-mo style. The fashionably late entrance is set to his latest track "The Hills." Once again the iPhone comes out, but this time the focus is on playlist creation, as The Weeknd deftly adds a number of songs to a list called "Late Night Party Vibes."
When he posts the playlist to Apple Music everyone in the party disappears and up comes two taglines, "It's all in your head" and "Create your own party." The commercial wraps up with information about monthly streaming rates and Apple Music's logo.
While today's Apple Music ads have yet to be posted to Apple's official online channels, a number of fans uploaded video captures to YouTube.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
35 Comments
I can't remember the last time apple put a price in a commercial. Interesting.
Commercials were a little weird but might have been The Weeknd's idea. I think ?Music will do fine. I'm wondering if they should skip android all together now?
[quote name="cali" url="/t/187936/latest-apple-music-ads-debut-during-mtv-vmas-feature-the-weeknd-playlists#post_2768112"]Commercials were a little weird but might have been The Weeknd's idea. I think ?Music will do fine. I'm wondering if they should skip android all together now?[/quote] Apple marketing, and they let someone else take over? I don't think so. Skip Android? Nope. I'd go further and say they should do other Android apps as well. They should kill the FaceTime app and bundle FT functionality into Messages, heck, they're mostly there anyhow. And they need to tweak iMessage initial setup to be the same as WhatsApp where it's connected only to your cell number. Even for an iPad or Mac to set up iMessage you're asked for your mobile number and are texted a confirmation code to enter. We don't need iMessage connected to anything but phone numbers—that'd clean up some things. And then release an Android version of that app. I want to be able to iMessage and FaceTime and voice message or send a video to anyone on any device and any time. If Apple released iMessage on Android it'd be big news and pretty much every Android user would install it. If it was a well made Android app I could see iMessage becoming pretty much the defacto messaging platform for smartphones within 5 years. Besides, F*** Zuckerberg. Here's the kicker: if every Android user installs iMessage it makes my life as an Apple devices user simpler. I get to use iMessage for ALL my short communication. Goodbye kik, goodbye Facebook messenger, goodbye WhatsApp, goodbye texts, goodbye Skype. If Apple is about simplifying and improving our lives, well, they know what to do.
As the parent of a 16 year old learning to drive, I got uncomfortable when the limo driver (JT) turned around and talked to the passenger... as the car continued to roll forward. "Eyes on the road!", I wanted to yell. Oh I know: they were in the future self-driving Apple Car and JT was just decoration.
I wonder if Tim Cook knows The Weeknd's "I can't feel my face" is about cocaine use? I'm assuming not since he felt it was appropriate for WWDC. These ads were so not Apple like. It really makes me miss the awesome iTunes silhouette ads. What a great ad campaign. The opposite of Apple Music ads (so far). Has there ever been an Apple ad that showed a price at the very end of it?