(Screenshot: ZDNet)

Apple CEO Tim Cook adores One Republic.

Surely, then, he has a good grasp of humor.

Also: Facebook's privacy pivot vs Microsoft's 2002 security pivot

Yet when you see him talk about privacy, you see a man deeply committed and wholly serious about it being a moral issue.

It's not surprising, then, that Apple has chosen to advertise the alleged superior privacy features of the iPhone when compared to what the company sees are the evil ways of Facebook and Google.

I expected, then, that the ad would be a serious message depicting Apple's embrace of the personal, private realm together with, perhaps, a veiled upper cut aimed at the Zuckerberg-Pichai axis.

Instead, Apple plays it for humor.

We see a sign that says "Privacy Matters." But we hear music that says: "Cartoon lizard coming to eat a cartoon grasshopper in 3...2...1."

We're offered scenes from everyday life, in which people assert their need not to have their conversations overheard, yet they're played for comedy.

There are times when you need to lock strangers -- or teachers or even members of your family -- out of your personal life.

Sometimes, these things can involve slight embarrassments, rather than state secrets.

Yet the tone of this ad seems to wink at the superficial nature of the issue, rather than the fundamental human right about which Cook so protests.

Perhaps Apple realizes it's had its own security issues. Perhaps it believes it's better to charm, rather than scare.

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Wouldn't it, though, have been more impactful and persuasive if Apple had taken a somber approach in order to reflect a somber issue?

Or, in these days of arrant madness, can't we take anything seriously anymore?

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