Apple-owned FileMaker launches ad campaign featuring actors from TV show 'The Office'

Apple subsidiary FileMaker has released a new ad campaign touting the custom app development tool, with a video and website featuring cast members from 'The Office' in a mock documentary about a highly successful beet farm powered by a FileMaker-produced app.

The new ad, running for almost three minutes, stars Kate Flannery, Paul Lieberstein, and Leslie David Baker, best known for their roles as Meredith, Toby, and Stanley in the NBC adaptation of 'The Office.' In the Farm Time FileMaker campaign, the trio appear as farm workers featured in a news report about the farm's success.

The farm, which harvests beets and delivers them to customers via drones, is managed by a single Beet Lord custom app. Shown operating on an iPhone, iPad, and an iMac, the ad explains the app tells employees tasks they need to accomplish, as well as managing records relating to produce, handling customer orders, and deliveries.

The video on YouTube includes links to the Beet Lord website, which turns out to be a microsite dedicated to the ad campaign. The site offers a short story about the commercial as a way to explain how the mythical business uses FileMaker, as well as select customer reviews, a brief demonstration on how to create a FileMaker app, and a free trial.

The Apple-owned service released its latest edition of FileMaker, version 16, in May 2017, with the update including new features such as Layout Objects and Cards to help with app creation, improved cURL and JSON integration, and support for OAuth 2.0.

10 Comments

imagladry 105 comments · 13 Years

About 6 years ago

Looks like someone has been screwing with the Beet Lords website. Their certificate is screwed up.

cincytee 420 comments · 18 Years

I've never understood Apple's rationale for keeping only FileMaker as a standalone software subsidiary. One would think Apple's business productivity tools (and their customer acceptance) would be better served by operating (and developing products) together, whether as a subsidiary or as a unified internal division. I think the red-headed stepchild approach to FileMaker has hurt it in the market, spiffy v16 or no.

goldenclaw 272 comments · 14 Years

cincytee said:

I've never understood Apple's rationale for keeping only FileMaker as a standalone software subsidiary. One would think Apple's business productivity tools (and their customer acceptance) would be better served by operating (and developing products) together, whether as a subsidiary or as a unified internal division. I think the red-headed stepchild approach to FileMaker has hurt it in the market, spiffy v16 or no.

This is a really good idea. They should set up as a loss leader, and provide some type of limited yet fully functional version on all Macs for free. This would introduce a wide range of people to the platform, and if they become interested in distributing apps they can buy a developer version.

jasenj1 900 comments · 21 Years

goldenclaw said:
This is a really good idea. They should set up as a loss leader, and provide some type of limited yet fully functional version on all Macs for free. This would introduce a wide range of people to the platform, and if they become interested in distributing apps they can buy a developer version.

Microsoft has Access as part of Office. Apple should have FileMaker as part of their standard app suite. Seems obvious.

FileMaker had Bento (a stripped down version of FileMaker Pro) for a little while, but killed it a few years ago.

techno 737 comments · 20 Years

I stopped using FileMaker (FM) years ago when Bento came out. Bento was so easy to use, they way FM should have been. I would use FM for more robust solutions. However, their implementation of FMServer was just so antiquated. The lack of a cloud service for hosting files was a deal breaker for many. Granted, it has been a few generations since I have looked at it.