Apple's 'Great Ideas Start Here' Campaign: Key Findings
- The tech giant released two campaign films to launch the latest M5 MacBook releases under its "Great Ideas Start Here" platform.
- TBWA\Media Arts Lab produced both spots, with "Best Performance Yet" directed by François Rousselet and "Tabs" produced and edited by BUCK.
- The MacBook Air with M5 starts at $1,099, up $100 from the prior generation, with base storage doubled to 512GB.
Apple has dropped two campaign films to mark the launch of its M5 MacBook releases under the existing "Great Ideas Start Here" brand platform.
The spots cover two sides of the newest Mac lineup.
"Tabs" introduces the MacBook Air with M5, while "Best Performance Yet" covers the MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max.
Both films were produced by bespoke Apple agency TBWA\Media Arts Lab and are running globally across digital and social platforms.
The campaign arrives as the company reported a nearly 7% drop in Mac sales to $8.39 billion during the holiday quarter, falling short of analyst expectations of nearly $9 billion.
The spots make a visual branding case for the performance gains Apple is pitching to justify the price increase.
Two Films, Two Products, One Platform
"Best Performance Yet" focuses on the MacBook Pro lineup.
Directed by François Rousselet for Division Global, the film follows professionals across disciplines as their keystrokes, gestures, and taps trigger individual instrument sounds.
The sequences build into a full jazz arrangement scored by Grammy-winning composer Antonio Sánchez, with the film's visual pace rising alongside the music.
"Tabs" takes a different approach for the MacBook Air.
Production company and editor BUCK constructed the spot around a user navigating dozens of simultaneously open browser tabs, each rendered as a distinct visual vignette.
Fela Kuti's "Let's Start" runs under the action, giving the tab-switching a rhythmic, choreographed quality.
Both films use music and rhythm as the primary storytelling device, a consistent thread in Apple's Mac advertising since the platform launched the "Great Ideas Start Here" positioning in 2025.
The MacBook M5's Pricing and Specs
The MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2,199, and the 16-inch M5 Max at $3,899, up $400 from its predecessor.
The MacBook Air with M5 starts at $1,099 for the 13-inch model, up $100 from the prior generation, with base storage doubled to 512GB and battery life rated at up to 18 hours.
Both machines are built around Apple's push to position the Mac as a capable platform for running AI workloads locally, with a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core.
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The MacBook Neo announcement rounds out the week's launch, giving Apple a lower-cost entry point to sit alongside the M5 Air and Pro.
Mac relatively low sales performance heading into the launch, especially when compared to last year's results, gives Apple reason to make a clear case for the hardware.
Here, we can see that the March launch campaign is doing some of that work.
Here's what brand and creative teams can take from Apple's approach to the M5 MacBook launch campaign:
- Structure each film around the product's specific claim: "Tabs" puts the multitasking argument directly on screen, so the product does the selling.
- Music choice signals audience: Licensed catalog and original scores can address different buyers within the same campaign.
- Rhythm-led ads carry a communication tradeoff: When editing and music lead, product details can recede, and that gap is important when prices go up.
The "Great Ideas Start Here" platform now has at least two distinct visual styles under the same tagline, which is a test of how much creative range a single brand positioning can carry before it loses coherence.
Our Take: Does the Music Do Too Much Work?
We think both films are well-crafted, and "Best Performance Yet" in particular is a strong piece of work.
The jazz ensemble structure is genuinely inventive, and Sánchez's score really makes for an inventive spot.
The more interesting question is whether rhythm-led advertising actually communicates product value or just generates a more favorable brand feeling.
Apple is raising prices on both machines at a moment when Mac sales are already under pressure.
A campaign that makes people feel good about the brand is useful, but one that makes people understand why the hardware is worth more money is the harder, more necessary job.
Tech brands launching hardware campaigns need agencies that understand how to connect product performance claims to creative storytelling.
Take a look at the top creative agencies in our directory.
