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'Controlling' Apple slows iAds campaigns, report claims

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple’s iAds system seems off to a slow start, with ad agencies having problems dealing with Apple’s notoriously over-controlling nature.

Apple’s need to learn how to work like ad agencies work has caused some planned ad campaigns to suffer huge delays — not precisely what clients booking $60 million value of advertising might expect.

Apple named 17 launch partners for iAd — but of these just Unilever and Nissan have had iAd campaigns in July. A Citigroup campaign began last week. Others also started last week, including campaigns from Disney and JC Penney.

Apple’s tight controls mean ad campaigns are taking up to ten weeks to create. “It’s a huge issue having Apple in the creative mix,” one ad director told the Wall Street Journal. This may have caused luxury brand, Chanel, to pull out of the effort.

The problem right now is that Apple is handling ad unit production as it develops tools for external agencies with which ads can be designed in future. This means ad agencies “don’t necessarily know what it is capable of or how to use the technology, one ad executive said.”

To shift some of its unfilled itinerary, Apple last month launched ‘iAds for developers’, a discount scheme for in-app app ads.

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