Jet “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” iPod Commercial (2003)

A rock follow-up

A week after the "Hey Mama" commercial, Apple had a second silhouette spot on air. Macworld described it on 15 October 2003 as a 30-second ad in prime-time rotation: black silhouettes listening to white iPods in front of brightly coloured backgrounds, the words "iPod" and "Mac or PC", and a closing Apple logo. Where the first spot used hip-hop, this one used rock: "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet, a track also featured on the iTunes Music Store. Award archives title the ad "Rock" and credit the same team as "Hey Mama": TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles, director Dave Meyers and RadicalMedia. In November 2003 it was re-edited to promote iTunes for Windows, and in June 2005 the silhouette campaign won a Grand Effie award.

The song

Written by Nic Cester and Cameron Muncey and produced by Dave Sardy, the song was the first single from Jet's debut album, Get Born, released in the US on 18 August 2003. Critics often compared it to Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life"; the band pointed instead to Motown, especially the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love". It peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the Alternative Airplay chart, and its black-and-white video won the 2004 MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video. The song did not chart in the US until after the commercial had aired.

The band

Jet formed in Melbourne in 2001 and were part of the early-2000s garage rock revival. Get Born, recorded at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, reached No. 1 in Australia and went platinum in the UK and the US.

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