Apple’s recently launched, clever ad campaign for its Safari web browser—with its emphasis on internet privacy—was perfectly timed to blast its chief rival Google after it failed to kill cookies in Chrome.

Apple’s privacy marketing push suggests that internet-tracking scare tactics are still a potent message, even if not everyone thinks they are sincere, and Apple is making the most of its rival’s stumbles, according to ad industry experts. In fact, Apple, with its “actually private” Safari ads, dramatically outspent Google Chrome in digital advertising last month, according to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.   

“Apple is definitely capitalizing on this moment,” said Stephanie Liu, senior analyst at research firm Forrester. 

Meanwhile, Google has been marketing Chrome, even if it can’t lean into the privacy angle. Instead, Google hosted a “Made By Pixel” event last week and started buying social media ads that focused on, what else, AI.

With that in mind, Ad Age wanted to see how this brand battle is taking shape.

How do Safari and Chrome measure up in marketing historically?

Liu compared Apple’s latest advertising to a victory lap stemming from an awareness of Google’s difficult position with respect to cookies, which Google had promised to block entirely in Chrome until it was forced to halt that project last month. Google’s predicament begs the question: Can it genuinely commit to privacy, Liu said. 

So long as the answer is, “No,” Apple appears content to attack through ads. Apple’s new campaign is anchored around a TV spot called “Flock,” which highlights Safari as a browser that takes user privacy seriously, firing a shot at Google Chrome, its only significant competitor. The rival platform was analogized to a network of flying cameras that spied on users wherever they went.

The campaign also included an aggressive digital ad push on social media, including Facebook and LinkedIn. Apple’s online posts called Safari “actually private,” and were accompanied by a surge in ad spend, according to Sensor Tower, which tracks internet advertising. Sensor Tower does not have an exact line of sight into advertising dollars, but its data shows trends in the marketplace.

“Between the two of them more of the marketing was on Safari in July,” a Sensor Tower spokesperson told Ad Age. Indeed, Safari accounted for 99% of the ad spend between Safari and Chrome in July, Sensor Tower’s data showed. Apple spent the bulk of its digital ad money on LinkedIn, Sensor Tower’s data showed, an indication that the professional social network was bombarded by Apple’s privacy message at a time that Google was still wounded by its cookie setback.

Safari and Chrome are just small pieces of Apple and Google’s product empires, respectively. Of course, both brands have storied marketing histories—Apple has spent years advertising iPhones, Macs and iPads, and Google has search, YouTube and its Android device lineup. Last year, Apple spent $1.42 billion on advertising while Google, through its parent Alphabet, spent $1.23 billion, according to Ad Age Datacenter. The data does not break out Safari and Chrome.

How do their marketing strategies differ?

Apple’s “Flock” TV spot landed on July 16, and Google’s announcement about keeping cookies came on July 22. It might seem as though Apple saw into the future, but Apple has leaned into its privacy message for years. Also, Google’s post-cookie plans likely would have been in the spotlight, and under siege from critics, regardless of its embarrassing walk-back. In July, Google’s plan to implement a totally new ad platform called Privacy Sandbox, which would not have relied on cookies, was coming to a head, and the ad tech industry had been loudly frustrated with the development of the new ad tech ecosystem.

Now, Google’s reversal is broadly understood as a hit to user privacy by allowing a new lease on life for the internet trackers that other browsers, including Safari, blocked years ago. Plus, it seems to validate the point that Apple made in its campaign.

It’s unclear what causal forces ultimately influence people’s preferences for Apple Safari or Google Chrome. However, Apple has made marked inroads into consumer perceptions about privacy, according to Matt Voda, CEO of marketing measurement firm OptiMine. Apple’s advertising has played a major role in this effort, Voda said, adding that as long as the company beats the same privacy drum, it’s safe to assume the messaging will continue to have an impact.

Google’s case around protecting user privacy is only getting worse, Voda said. 

Google’s cookie reversal “flies in the face of all the positioning [it has] been making over the last few years,” Voda said.

By deprecating cookies, Google hoped to make privacy a more marketable feature of its Chrome browser. But Google has been hamstrung by competing interests: On one hand, it wants to enhance privacy and on the other, it faces strict scrutiny about its dominance in internet advertising, which it would inevitably affect by killing cookies. U.K. regulatory bodies have been watching Google for anticompetitive edges it could create by deprecating cookies. Google also just lost an antitrust case in the U.S. over its search business.

Read more: What to know about the Google monopoly ruling

Since its product event last week on Pixel phones and AI, Google has been advertising Chrome, especially on social media sites such as Facebook. The marketing has mostly focused on how AI products are being stuffed into the browser to make it smarter, but there also are themes around the speed of the browser, interoperability and malware protections.

Instead of unilaterally killing cookies Google wants to give Chrome users a way to either opt in or out of the trackers. Google is still working on details about how consumers will be given that choice. Google also made stricter privacy rules around “incognito mode,” which is a method of browsing without cookie tracking on Chrome. Google implemented anti-fingerprinting rules in incognito mode after it announced the cookie setback. Clearly, Google wants to maintain its purchase in the privacy debate.

“Chrome is built with the goal of keeping your data safe by default and ensuring users can control when and how their data is used to personalize their web browsing experience,” a Google spokesperson said by email. “We believe users should always be in control, which is why we’ve built easy to use privacy and security settings directly into Chrome.”

Apple did not return a request for comment for this story. 

There are critics of both Google and Apple who claim neither one truly values privacy and that they only want to achieve marketing wins by championing it. Apple, for example, might be prematurely taking a victory lap in the eyes of consumers who are frustrated by data breaches, such as the one this summer that impacted 110 million AT&T customers, as well as annoying targeted advertising, Voda said.

“You could adopt all of Apple’s products and still have your data compromised,” Voda said. Of course, this may not be Apple’s fault, but Voda’s point illustrates how a confused consumer may take issue with Apple’s celebratory messaging.

Still, the fact that Apple continues to make privacy central to its marketing shows the theme has resonance.

Who is winning

Apple has leveraged its competitor’s immobility by appealing to consumers with the fresh ad blitz around Safari. And Apple has never been limited much by outside pressure, which gives it a free hand to adopt anti-ad designs and policies in Safari, which it uses to its marketing advantage. Apple even recently announced a new feature in Safari that will let users swipe away annoying pop-ups.

Also read: Apple’s pop-up blocker is a warning to advertisers

Despite Apple’s privacy hammer, it still lags Google in browser market share. Chrome has a higher than 65% market share worldwide on desktop and mobile combined, compared to Safari at 18%, according to StatCounter. On mobile in the U.S., however, it is a different story: Safari has 44% market share compared to Chrome’s 41% in the U.S., according to StatCounter.

What’s ahead

The introduction of AI into internet ad products from Google and Apple will inject fresh energy into the privacy battle between Safari and Chrome, Liu and Voda said. Apple has already emphasized its AI—which will be coming to Safari in iOS 18—as being privacy-forward, including spending a large portion of time on the issue at WWDC in June. Google, on the other hand, has focused more energy on the sheer capabilities of its AI platform, and getting these capabilities into users’ hands through Chrome and other products, Liu said.

“[AI] is another vector that could play out for Apple to use as a differentiator” for its browser, Forrester’s Liu said. 

Contributing: Garett Sloane