Apple is taking aim at ads and adtech through, um, a new ad campaign. See one of the spots here:
The campaign features the slogan, “Keep data trackers off your back,” while depicting people literally riding on someone’s back, following them everywhere and weighing them down. It positions Safari as a pro-privacy browser and is meant as to compare it with rival browsers that allow “data companies” to track users. While Apple doesn’t name anyone, the message clearly targets Chrome, with the “data companies” in question likely referring to adtech cos and, increasingly, AI scrapers.
The campaign appears to be rolling out across multiple platforms. We’ve also spotted it running on TikTok. See our screen recording here:
Why This Matters:
Apple knows the ad industry is an easy target. At a time when the company has faced (a lot of) questions around its own product innovation (or lack thereof), privacy remains one area where its messaging seems to resonate with consumers. The ad industry, meanwhile, has spent years struggling to clearly explain the value exchange behind advertising and data-driven targeting. (The trade groups have done terrible work here.) As a result, Apple has smartly positioned itself as the consumer-friendly alternative, exploiting concerns about tracking and data to differentiate its products.
That positioning isn’t limited to marketing, of course. Over the past few years, Apple has fundamentally reshaped the online ad ecosystem through a series of basically unilateral privacy changes, including App Tracking Transparency (ATT), restrictions on IDFA, Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) in Safari, and Mail Privacy Protection. Many of these moves have delivered meaningful privacy benefits for consumers.
At the same time, those changes have weakened third-party ad, measurement, and data ecosystems while Apple has continued to expand its own ads business. Critics have argued that Apple has been able to position itself as a privacy champion while simultaneously making it harder for competitors to do business (this has led to legal challenges). Whether one views that as pro-consumer, anti-competitive, or some combination of both, Apple’s privacy strategy has become one of the most consequential forces shaping today’s ad industry.
Experts React:
We’ve been pretty critical of Apple’s anti-ad moves for the last few years, as seen here:
Also, interesting post from a few days ago by a mobile developer:
Our Take:
Apple, which has a growing advertising business that relies in part on user data, can, unlike almost any other company, launch an ad campaign arguing that ads and data-driven ads are bad and still generate fawning press coverage.
Why? Because there’s an entire ecosystem of reporters, bloggers, and creators dedicated to covering Apple. Many of those people don’t know much about the advertising or adtech ecosystem, so they largely regurgitate Apple’s framing without much scrutiny. It’s a smart playbook.
