| Apple and Lucasfilms have released four new commercials for Star Wars, and once again they are in QuickTime format only. Apple has the commercials posted on their web sites and have made them available in QuickTime 4 and QuickTime 3 formats.
Star Wars is premiering on May 19th, a little more than two weeks away. The commercials posted on the web are also being shown on broadcast TV. They each feature a specific character in the sci-fi drama including Queen Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Shmi Skywalker.
Apple has also announced that the first Star Wars commercial released has hit the 10 million mark and that 1 million of those downloads was in QuickTime 4 format.
The Mac Observer Spin: 1 million QuickTime 4 downloads translates into MEGA-EXPOSURE for Apple. This may possibly have been the smartest marketing move Apple has made, certainly it is THE smartest move they have made when it comes to promoting QuickTime. Certainly the iMac commercials, the Think Different campaign, the Toasted Campaign, and the 1984 commercial were brilliant, but they were all for more short term gains.
The battle over Internet multimedia standards is a long term battle, the overall impact and permutations of which we have not even begun to see. The move to work with Lucasfilms on providing Star Wars commercials in QuickTime format has done more to raise consumer awareness of the technology than any amount of bundling, technical superiority, or any other factor or feature could have possibly accomplished. Even better, consumers have liked what they have seen and experienced first hand that the technology kicks butt.
Something often left out in the reports on the popularity of the downloads is that hundreds (possibly thousands) of fan sites have also posted the commercial to be downloaded. Many of these fan sites have converted the movie to MPEG, Microsoft's Media Player, RealVideo and undoubtedly a few other formats as well. The total number of downloads is therefore far higher than 10 million, but many of those downloads haven't necessarily helped Apple.
One more thing, if any of our Observers has a line on Star Wars tickets in the Austin, New York, or neighboring areas, AND you would like for some of the staff of your favorite Mac magazine to be able to go with you, let us know. :-)
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