Should Apple heed Chrysler's, GE's Super Bowl make-it-here message?
One of the salient themes in Super Bowl ads was bringing manufacturing back to America. A lesson for Apple?
One unmistakable theme in Super Bowl ads this year was manufacturing in America. Is it time for Apple to reconsider all of the production it does abroad?
GE's ad, which highlighted Appliance Park in Louisville, KY, tried to show that the U.S. is still perfectly capable of making big-ticket consumer products.
"We're on the forefront of revitalizing manufacturing," a production line worker says. "We're proving that it can be done here and it can be done well," he adds.
The Chrysler ad starring Clint Eastwood echoes the same theme of making things in America and how this is one way the U.S. can hoist itself out its economic doldrums.
"We find a way through tough times. And if we can't find a way, we'll make one...Detroit's showing us it can be done," Eastwood says, speaking about Detroit's comeback.
Maybe Apple should heed this message. If icons like GE, Intel, Boeing, and Chrysler can make core products here, then Apple could probably find a way.
Impossible? MacBooks can be made only in China? Is that an immutable global economic reality?
Apple has proved itself capable of doing things a lot of companies would or could not do. It would carry a lot of risk and require Apple to be more proactive about where products and components are made. Seemingly impractical maybe. But not impossible.
