Motorola Super Bowl Ad Targets Apple Drones

Motorola is going after Apple’s market share by suggesting (strongly) that the legions of customers that use Apple devices are naught but unimaginative drones. The company sent Engadget the first 15 seconds of the ad the company plans to run for this Sunday’s Super Bowl, and that commercial taps the same 1984 legacy that Apple itself used to launch the Mac.

The commercial is pushing the company’s Xoom tablet, the same tablet that Moto ostensibly pushed by lampooning the iPad in an earlier commercial touting Google’s upcoming Honeycomb release of Android OS.

In the new piece, however, Motorola presents a lone Xoom user surrounded by a sea of attractive iPhone and iPad users - we know this from the white earbuds hanging from their ears - all of whom are presented as drones. Really cute drones at least in the case of the last person we see in the spot.

That Motorola, a company that has been an off an on again partner to Apple for decades, is targeting the iPad shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Apple has smoked Moto in the smartphone business, and the iPad is obviously the dominant force in the tablet market the iPad itself created.

That Moto chose to pick at Apple’s own use of 1984 theme to present Apple as a controlling behemoth also shouldn’t be all that surprising. Not only did Apple already demonstrate the power of advertising this message when combatting more successful companies, the irony of presenting Apple as the new Big Brother will be lost on few culturally-aware viewers.

It remains to be seen, however, if use cute drones to represent the idea of Apple being everywhere is a message that will resonate with those same viewers.

Wouldn't it be just awful to use whatever Apple device this drone is using?

Wouldn’t it be just awful to use whatever Apple device this drone is using?