The company that once told Madison Avenue to keep its hands off the iPhone is now, ever so quietly, leaving the door ajar.
Apple last week published detailed advertising policies for its Maps product, a document that, in the Apple tradition, arrived without fanfare but with considerable specificity. For those who have been watching the company's gradual, almost reluctant entry into the advertising business, the policies represent something close to a formal announcement that Apple Maps advertising is moving from the laboratory to the marketplace, most likely this summer.
What the policies reveal is characteristically Cupertinian: a long list of things advertisers will not be permitted to do. Local service providers — plumbers, electricians, roofers, the entire yellow pages of people who come to your house — are prohibited from buying ads. So are bail bond services and cryptocurrency ATMs. Medical services will be reviewed individually, which in Apple's lexicon generally means slowly.
The exclusions draw a sharp line between Apple's vision and Google's. Google Maps has built a substantial business connecting users with service providers who travel to customers; Apple, it appears, wants to connect users with places they can visit. It is the difference between finding a locksmith and finding a coffee shop, and Apple has chosen the coffee shop.
"The divergence reflects a broader product difference," as one analysis put it, though one might also note that it reflects Apple's broader preference for transactions it considers seemly. (The company has never been accused of leaving money on the table in order to pick up money from the gutter, but it does prefer the table.)
For advertisers, the restrictions create a narrower but presumably tidier marketplace — fewer categories, tighter controls, and the implicit promise that an Apple Maps ad will not appear adjacent to something that might cause a brand manager to receive an unpleasant telephone call.
The publication of the policies is itself the news. Apple does not generally trouble itself with detailed advertising documentation until a product is ready for commerce. The filing cabinet, it seems, is being organized.
Original story published in Digiday: "Ad Tech Briefing: Apple's continued interest in ads - Digiday", by Ronan Shields