NY Times: A Consumer’s Spot for Apple Grows Up

Here's a homemade Apple ad that's so good, Lee Clow came calling.

Late last week, Mr. Haley’s spot had been viewed 2,131 times on youtube.com. Among the viewers, Apple executives said, were marketing employees at Apple in Cupertino, Calif., who asked staff members on the Apple account at TBWA/Chiat/Day to get in touch with Mr. Haley about producing a professional version of the commercial (which, truth be told, had the same look and feel as many of Apple’s other ads).

“I was sitting on the bus and I got this e-mail on my phone,” Mr. Haley, a native of Warwick, England, said in an interview last week from the University of Leeds, where he is a “fresher,” or first-year student.

The message said, “‘We represent Apple and we’ve seen what you have produced and we’d like a chat with you,’” Mr. Haley recalled, adding: “This seemed ridiculous and far-fetched. My initial reaction was, someone wanted to steal it.”

He was soon persuaded that the message was real and traveled to Los Angeles in October, in his first visit to the United States, to work on a broadcast-ready version of his spot with creative executives at TBWA/Chiat/Day, part of the TBWA Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group.

Consumers creating commercials “is part of this brave new world we live in,” said Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer at TBWA Worldwide, based in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Playa del Rey.

“It’s an exciting new format for brands to communicate with their audiences,” Mr. Clow said. “People’s relationship with a brand is becoming a dialogue, not a monologue.”

The commercial based on Mr. Haley’s spot was seen on football games Sunday afternoon and on shows that night, including “Desperate Housewives” and Game 4 of the World Series. It is also to be shown in Europe and Japan.

Apple paid for Mr. Haley’s expenses while he stayed in Los Angeles, said an Apple spokesman, Steve Dowling, and also “compensated him like any creative professional, for his idea and his contributions to the creative process.”