Apple posted a clever new marketing tool Friday that puts students in charge of making their own sales pitch — a customizable template called The Parent Presentation, designed to help convince parents that a Mac is essential for college success. And it comes complete with a video demo by comedian and Saturday Night Live performer Martin Herlihy (part of the trio behind those Please Don’t Destroy digital shorts videos, which are a lot funnier than his work here, to be honest).
Update: Apple made the YouTube video private for unknown reasons Saturday. It remains offline, although The Parent Presentation is still available as a free download.
Apple offers The Parent Presentation: How to convince your parents to get you a Mac
This marketing approach marks a bit of a shift in Apple’s traditional advertising strategy. Rather than relying solely on professional marketing campaigns, the company is empowering students to become advocates for their products within their own families. By providing a ready-made presentation filled with (ostensibly) persuasive arguments, Apple seems to want to transform the often-difficult conversation about expensive technology purchases into a structured, maybe-even entertaining family discussion.
Apple’s The Parent Presentation is available as a free download in three popular formats — Apple Keynote, PowerPoint and Google Slides. It gives students flexibility regardless of which presentation software their family prefers. The template contains 45 pre-written, parent-focused arguments for why a Mac is crucial for academic achievement, ranging from practical benefits to more lighthearted persuasion tactics.
Comedian demonstrates the art of parental persuasion
To showcase how students can effectively use the presentation, Apple enlisted Herlihy to create an accompanying 7-minute instructional video. In the video, Herlihy — son of Saturday Night Live writer Tim Herlihy and a Please Don’t Destroy digital shorts producer for SNL himself — demonstrates the template’s features to a group of high school students preparing for college.
The presentation strikes a balance between mild, somewhat droll humor and genuine product benefits. While many slides feature tongue-in-cheek comments designed to amuse both students and parents, the template also highlights legitimate advantages of Mac computers. They include MacBook Air’s exceptional portability and the ecosystem benefits that come with Apple’s integrated hardware and software approach.
Part of Apple’s broader back-to-school strategy
The Parent Presentation launches alongside Apple’s annual Back to School promotion, which began earlier this week. The promotion offers college students free accessories — such as AirPods — when they purchase eligible new Mac or iPad devices. Additionally, Apple provides students with a 10% discount on select products, making the devices more accessible for education budgets.
Students can download the presentation template from Apple’s College Students landing page and customize it with their name and other personal details. The 45 slides can be edited to better reflect individual needs and family dynamics, allowing students to tailor their arguments to what might resonate most with their specific parents or guardians.
The presentation format also serves a practical purpose beyond marketing — it gives students experience with presentation software and maybe even public speaking skills that could prove valuable. Whether parents ultimately decide to purchase a Mac or not, students gain practice in organizing arguments, presenting information clearly and making persuasive cases for their needs. Humorously or not.
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
