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MacBoy vs PCdrone: More Great TV Ads of What Makes Apple So Good
To Apple, you are what you compute with.
"I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC".
Brilliant!
I love the TV ad campaigns when Apple Computers takes on Microsoft. Over the years, Apple has a long history for skewering Microsoft specifically and the Windows-dominated PC world in general. Best of all, they are done artfully -- unlike any "negative" ad campaign done by politicians. While the famous "1984" Macintosh ad which aired once during the Super Bowl cinematically sought to destroy the futureworld of office drone lemmings using Windows (hmmm, how prescient were they?), the more recent campaigns have been only cool.
The Switch campaigns from a few years ago, showing how easy it is for a Mac to read PC apps and file, making the file transfer easy.
The dancing shadow iPod/iTunes ads show music fans (love the Wolfmother!) exactly "where they want to go today" (Microsoft's tag line from the early nils): to the store to go buy an iPod.
The latest Apple vs Micosoft ads are the best yet. In a charming way, the shortcomings of Windows PCs are just as clearly shown as the much better Apple.
These six new ads are so good -- the dim, trying, greying, overweight PC user is trying to say he's just as good as anything on the Apple. To show how cool he is, he even listens to an iPod, which gets used on PCs, too. The PC user dweeb tries so hard to be cool but, of course, fails miserably.
While the Apple user simply is calm, together, helpful, easy to talk with and completely naturally cool because of the kind of computing he does.
For example, in one spot, the youthful MacBoy (wearing sneakers, of course) talks about all the apps included with every iLife-installed Apple computer. Older, greying PCsuit has bundles, too...like a clock and a calculator. In another, PC-dweeb is sneezing from "viruses", while MacBoy is happily virus-free, because Apple's simply don't get "sick". The others show the easy of networking with other computers and devices, even PCs. Or how the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg praises the new Apple laptop. Or how Apple's simply don't have the freezing and restarting problems of PCs.
Brilliant! Because it is TRUE! Imagine that, advertising that is accurate.
If the ad campaign were reversed, Microsoft would say little by saying too much, going on and on....just like the way they package their products on the retail shelf. In March a popular spoof imaging how Microsoft would package the iPod box brilliantly captures Microsoft lack of design or sophistication.
This new campaign from Apple is fabulous simply because it captures the brand essence of Apple perfectly. Yes, we Apple users love our various Apple products, refusing to ever be the office lemming dweeb. But at least we'll still make nice with you.
To see all the ads, click here.
posted by Unknown @ Monday, May 15, 2006,
2 Comments:
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At 1:47 PM,
RC said...
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Actually i was just recently exposed to the 1984 mac ad...
didn't Ridley Scott direct it?
It's pretty cool.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com -
At 2:39 AM,
galtzo said...
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Yes it was Ridley Scott... on a budget of $900,000.00 ;)
