iPod Ad Spoofs/Parodies

About

iPod Advertisement Spoofs first appeared late 2003 (Something Awful's iPod ads) but rose in popularity around mid-2004.

The creation of the iPod spoofs was the result of the fame of the original silhouette videos and posters.

They featured all the elements of an ordinary iPod silhouette commercial or iPod silhouette print advertisement but instead of using ambiguous dancers, these videos and pictures had a recognizable character's/several recognizable characters' silhouette/s listening to music on the iPod.

Usually, the word "iPod" is parodied with a different word which relates to the character/s used in the picture or video. The format used is "iX", with X being the related word. Examples of this rewording are "iTrap", "iPity", "iAye", "iRan", "iLost", etc.

Witty sentences or phrases are also often used in these parodies to add more humor to the spoof.

Origin

Apple Incorporated, the multinational corporation, has used a variety of distinctive advertising campaigns to promote their iPod digital media player, the most famous being commercials and print advertising using silhouetted characters (usually dancing) in front of a single-colored bright background listening to music with an iPod. The first time they appeared was September of 2003 in the form of posters, as stated by Chaosmint.com.

Videos first appeared around October of 2003 but the first video to become popular using this idea was accompanied by the Black Eyed Peas song, Hey Mama, and debuted November of 2003:

The last Apple commercial in this format aired on May 2008 featuring Coldplay's Viva La Vida. It is obvious, at this point, that the commercial has undergone a number of stylistic changes:

iPod Banner/Poster Parodies on the Web

Somethingawful.com was among the first contributors of this meme on the internet with their Parodied iPod Ads on September 15, 2003. These ads were in the form of banners instead of posters, those of which followed soon afterward (see images below).

Poster spoofs first started appearing on the net on a site called Netfirms.com. The owner of the site, George Chen, states he created the parodies because it was fun.

In my opinion, one of the most ingenious ad campaigns ever produced is the Apple iPod's current campaign. It's incredibly simple, yet it's bright colors and key product placement get it's message across. It's also incredibly fun to parody.

These are some posters of his making:

• "iMosh"
• "iKirby"
• "iStudy"
• "iRave"
• "iPikachu"
• "iHyper"
• "iSeeYou"

iPod Commercial Spoofs

The first ever spoof video can be found on a site called Macboy.com, posted on November 25, 2003. It features the silhouette of Steve Ballmer, the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, dancing to the song Get On Your Feet by Gloria Estefan.

The creator, a person who calls himself Macboy, states jokingly that he made the video because he wanted Apple to give him a free iPod:

This is my second Apple iPod ad parody, and Apple still has not sent me a free iPod to stop the insanity!

• Macboy's first iPod parody video can be found here.
• This iPod parody's production notes can be found here.

On June 23, 2006, an iPod commercial spoof competition was held by AudioBooksForFree.com. More than two million videos were entered for the competition. The competition ended on December 20, 2006.

The winner was a Youtube user named David Schilling, AKA "schillid":www.youtube.com/profile?user=schillid, with his video entitled "Two Apples" featuring some stock footage of the Beatles accompanied by their song, "Revolution". This video was rated highest with 3.46 stars:

Reference Site:

• Eworldwire.com

Here are some more parody videos from the competition which can also be found on Youtube: