Apple Is Nearly Doubling Its Design Team To Make Better Ads

Apple will nearly double the size of its in-house marketing design team, according to a report from Ann-Christine Diaz at Ad Age.

The company is adding between 200 and 300 new creatives to a team currently housing about 300 staffers in a move that Diaz reports will give Apple more control of its intellectual property and creative work.

The decision to add to its in-house team comes at an interesting time for the Apple brand, perceived by some as being less innovative than it was prior to Steve Jobs' death in 2011.

In July, statistics showed that Apple's big "Designed by Apple in California" campaign was a flop with viewing audiences. Those ads, produced by TBWA/Media Arts Lab, redirected the focus of Apple commercials from the specific features of the company's products to one that highlighted the ways the products improved people's lives.

By adding more creatives to its team, Apple can extend what the ads called its "signature," the intense care it gives to designing products, to the design of its branded efforts.

Ad Age reports that Apple will continue to work with outside agencies like TBWA/Media Arts Lab, Mono, and Eleven, but bringing more creative brainpower in-house will allow more external media offerings to be "Designed by Apple in California."

If nothing else, a more robust in-house design team could prevent Apple from repeating its recent practice of tossing almost-ready TV ads made by outside agencies after deciding the ads were not good enough to air.