Adidas Dumps iAds Due To Steve Jobs

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From the outside looking in, it looks like iAds has been a success for Apple. While numbers have been announced, a recent article in BusinessWeek said that iAds was taken mobile ad marketshare from Google and competing services. One company who isn’t happy with iAds – German shoe giant Adidas, who’s been feuding with Apple king Steve Jobs over what their ads look like.

We know Steve Jobs is strict about what goes on Apple products, what they look like, and how they run. For example, the iPhone 3GS doesn’t have customizable wallpapers on the home screen because Sir Jobs thinks it lags the phone too much. So, it shouldn’t surprise anybody that Jobs and company have a tight leash on iAds. In the introduction, Jobs said they wanted to raise the quality of the mobile ads, anyway.

So, Business Insider is reporting that two “mobile industry” executives have told them that Adidas is dropping a $10 million ad campaign from iAds due to creative differences with Apple, and Steve Jobs. According to the article, Adidas has submitted three different creative concepts for mobile ads on the platform, and Apple said no to them all.

$10 million may not be a lot to Apple as a whole, a company that made $11 billion in income last year. But, for an ad network, it is a sizable amount. And Adidas is a big customer.

Adidas isn’t the first client to leave iAds in a huff. Back in August, the Wall Street Journal reported that French fashion company Chanel left iAds.

And I’m sure Google/AdMob will gladly take any clients that Apple pisses off. Especially those with a $10 million budget.