Apple highlights data privacy features in new ad

The ad features an auction of the protagonist Ellie's private data.

For long, marketers have been saying that data is the new oil. Apple's latest ad about privacy is a play on that notion. The ad's protagonist is a young woman named Ellie who discovers that her personal data is being sold at an auction house.

People present (who presumably represent companies) bid on her iPhone's emails, purchase history, location data, contacts, browsing history, and more. (Don't miss the guy who looks suspiciously similar to Amazon's Jeff Bezos.)

The ad is to emphasise on Apple's App Tracking Transparency and Mail Privacy Protection features - which Ellie eventually uses to protect her data from stolen. Once she hits a button, the auction house thins out, with its patrons vanishing into thin air, protecting her data.

Privacy is a point that Apple has touched upon in the past multiple times in its ads. Last year, we saw an Apple ad featuring a young man being followed around town by the companies he transacts with.

The brainchild of TBWA\Media Arts Lab, a creative agency that only services Apple, this ad puts a human face to the apps that follow you daily, with or without your consent. The apps then use the data they’ve collected on you to target you with precise ads and, perhaps, influence your behaviour.