“Something Drastic Has to Change” ⇥ businessinsider.com

In January 2013, James Vincent of TBWA/Media Arts Lab — Apple’s ad agency — wrote a pretty brutal email to Phil Schiller suggesting that Apple reconsider much of their internal corporate culture (capitalization [sic]):

we understand that this moment is pretty close to 1997 in terms of the need for advertising to help pull apple through this moment.

Schiller didn’t like that at all:

This is not 1997. Nothing like it in any way.

Scathing.

The timing of these emails — considering turnaround time — suggests that these are the kinds of ads that were being discussed as being insufficient and a bit wet. Shortly after, the impeccable “Photos Every Day” ad aired, followed by the equally wonderful “Music Every Day”. I’d say Schiller got his wish for a drastically better campaign.

Update: Apparently, Media Arts Lab encourages entirely lowercase emails.