The giant ad banner in Las Vegas for CES 2019 making a wordplay on the classic “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” line, clearly taking a dig at its competitors over privacy.
Apple doesn’t ever attend CES, but the company spent what was surely no small amount of money to secure premium ad placement for what we can only assume is the length of the show. The ad also happens to troll every major Apple competitor at CES. The goal here seems pretty clear: Apple, despite not appearing for the event, wants to tout its focus on privacy. The Cupertino giant has been working on the element of privacy for years and CES appears to be the right platform for such promotion. Not to mention, it’s also a nasty dig at all its competitors following an ad-based business model, including Google.
The ad ends with a link to apple.com/privacy, a page that talks about all the ways that Apple outshines when it comes to keeping your data private and secure.
Apple’s focus on privacy is nothing new — the company has long said that it doesn’t make money from its users’ personal information, but from selling people hardware and software. That privacy priority came into clear focus three years ago when Apple refused to assist the FBI in unlocking an iPhone that belonged to a suspected terrorist in San Bernardino, CA. And throughout 2018, new security scandals seemingly emerged every week (with Facebook almost always leading the way) and the government took a major interest in what technology giants like Google are doing with our personal data.