Apple is running a new television ad to pitch iTunes which features dozens of popular musicians. The new ad debuted on Tuesday evening; it was aired three times on two television networks (The WB and NBC). It is now available for viewing on Apple’s Web site.
New iMacs, Power Mac G4s and the G4 Cube now sport CD-RW drives, and Apple’s iTunes has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of Mac users. Apple is capitalizing on these points in the new 60 second TV spot, which illustrates the Mac’s ability to create customized music CDs.
In the ad, a young man walks into an empty theater and sits down, sifting through a collection of CDs he removes from his backpack. On stage are more than 20 commercial musicians, representing a wide swath of musical genres. The young man then proceeds to instruct the musicians gathered on stage about which song he’d like them to play for his next CD. The musicians interact with and cajole the listener, and ultimately capitulate to his demands quite happily.
The twenty musicians include soul crooner Barry White, funkateer George Clinton, Liz Phair, Steve Harwell of Smashmouth (the band that tore it up during Apple’s developer party at Macworld Expo in New York last summer), De La Soul, and many others.
The ad purports “to demonstrate how Mac users can pick their favorite tunes from their CD library and create (burn) custom CDs on their Macs,” according to Apple.
The ad closes with the increasingly familiar Apple slogan “Rip. Mix. Burn.” The Apple logo appears with Apple’s “Think Different” slogan, and as the ad fades to black, Parliament Funkadelic founder George Clinton says “It’s your music. Burn it on the Mac. Dig?”
To view the ad on Apple’s Web site you will — of course — have to have QuickTime installed.