Apple's TikTok ads for the MacBook Neo are the right kind of weird

Apple's TikTok ad campaign has gone down the absurdist route to promote the MacBook Neo. It's weird, but it works.

In the attention economy that is modern social media, brands have to be bold with their posts while also marketing their wares. In the case of Apple's latest activity on TikTok, it's a very rare demonstration of a company "getting it."

Apple's introduction of the MacBook Neo is intended to attract a new audience to its hardware line. With a relatively low price point, it's going after consumers that are more sensitive to budgeting than ever before, where they congregate online.

For a younger demographic, that means posting to TikTok.

However, there's a considerable challenge to doing marketing posts on social media where doomscrolling is habitual. You can't simply post your standard TV ad on there and hope it works, because everyone will scroll past without even considering it.

But at the same time, there is also the risk of looking like you're trying too hard to fit in. That can lead to the marketing equivalent of the "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?" meme, which at best will be equally ignored, or at worst, mercilessly ridiculed as being severely out of touch.

For the MacBook Neo, Apple's TikTok strategy goes down a different route entirely.

The obvious temptation is to shoehorn commercially acceptable but fading once-popular memes into the messaging. Referring to "Skibidi Toilet" or "6-7" may seem edgy to the boardroom, but to social users, that's trying too hard.

So, instead of determining how to use "rizz" effectively, Apple went with another well-worn marketing technique that works: Absurdist hinting.

No rizz

As of March 9, Apple's official TikTok account with 7.6 million followers has just 12 vertical videos. All videos that were previously on the account were wiped, replaced by a series of clips that were posted within days of the Wednesday Apple Experience and the MacBook Neo's launch.

The earliest three are your more typical marketing messages, directly promoting the MacBook Neo. The first shows the notebook, complete with a flood of iMessage notifications, reaction imagery, and an emoji-style cake being "blown" out.

That was followed by a slideshow, explaining outright the main features of the new model. The third wasn't much of a marketing departure either, showing an unboxing of the MacBook Neo on the grass inside the Apple Park donut.

These three items are very much your standard Apple fare, and were probably included to make sure the usual bases are covered.

After that, things go weird.

Going Ham

The other nine clips don't actually indicate that they are promoting a specific Apple product. Instead, they are references to three of the four colors that the MacBook Neo uses.

The first group play on "Citrus," with the shots including a close-up of fruit in bubbly water, and someone saying "I love limes" while making their macOS desktop very green. There's also the extremely absurd FaceTime call between a lemon and a lime, complete with stereotypical camera angles.

The second trio are for "Blush," including an animated Finder icon blushing with rosy cheeks, and a sunrise complete with the Apple starting-up chime. There's also the more direct reference, where a pair of hands opens up a MacBook-looking compact and applying blush.

For "Indigo," things get weird, with a retro Macintosh clip on an appropriately colored background. It's accompanied by a caption in binary that says "mother."

There's also a person dressed in indigo-colored clothing with jeans that have a giant pocket in the back, containing a full-size MacBook. One of the more artistic shots is sourced from the account @Malitalia_, showing stained hands after working with Japanese indigo.

The fourth colorway, Silver, is not yet illustrated by its own TikTok triptych. But if it does, Apple will make something similarly connected that doesn't directly scream what it's about to the viewer.

If you know, you know

To an outsider, Apple's TikTok messaging is extremely weird, especially for a company that works hard to create perfect advertising imagery. Indeed, comments on the clips are wondering if Apple's account got hacked and even directly ask "Apple honey, are we okay?"

In reality, this is Apple taking the concept of "Show, don't tell" to the extreme. In the nine color clips, there are some hints that it is about Apple, but it's not spelled out to the viewer.

For anyone who stops their doomscrolling session after seeing the clips, they may ask themselves what it's about. The more curious will look elsewhere in the account, and eventually stumble upon the colors as an explanation.

Apple observers will already be aware of the colors and instantly connect the dots. A real case of "IYKYK" or, for those who dislike it, commercialized vagueposting.

What Apple has done is create a bunch of content that is interesting enough to make people take notice, on a platform where everyone is working hard to catch the viewer's attention for a few precious seconds. It's also done so in a way that effortlessly reads the room, and delivers the same sort of energy as other content on the app.

For those that Apple snares in the attention trap, there is a need to look deeper to work out the meaning of the message. At that point, Apple's engagement bait has done its job.