“Have you seen the new Apple ads? Excellent. I had had a conversation yesterday with someone who pointed out that Apple has really become a lifestyle company. The new ad campaign clearly captures this with the depiction of the “Mac” vs. “PC.” There’s no doubt that here that Apple’s looking to capitalize on things like the Vista delay and the reinforcing the overall negative perception of the PC,” Michael Gartenberg blogs for Jupiter Research.
“Will it work? I suspect it already is, although I don’t have the data to prove that hypothesis,” Gartenberg writes. “I’ve already seen anecdotally friends who are computer literate who would have NEVER bought a Macintosh already plunk down cash for a new iMac or Mini with the advent of Boot Camp and things like Parallels Virtualization. I suspect this new clever (but not arrogant) marketing campaign is going to do well for them going forward.”
Advertisements:
• Get the new iMac with Intel Core Duo for as low as $31 A MONTH with Free shipping!
• Get the MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo for as low as $47 A MONTH with Free Shipping!
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• Apple’s brand new iPod Hi-Fi speaker system. Home stereo. Reinvented. Available now for $349 with free shipping.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
Related article:
Apple debuts ‘Get a Mac’ TV ads, new section of website replaces ‘Switch’ (link to watch ads online) – May 01, 2006
How about Brooke Burke as the Mac and Rosie O’Donnell as the PC…
In reply to:
“….attack Macs we take it really personally but the overwhelming majority of PC users couldn’t care less that you are attacking their PC because they didn’t consciously decide to use a PC – it was just what was available. More than likely they are fed up with the very issues the ads address – restarting, viruses, compatibility, etc. That’s what they will be paying attention to.”
I would just like to say that I think what you are saying is beyond crap. First of all those commercials are really cheap and unoriginal. They’re simply glowing with arrogance. Sure, take itunes, imovie and compare them with the windows calculator and clock … It makes no sense. In fact it’s rediculous and it only annoys PC users. If Apple would simply do a commercial introducing mac’s possibilities instead of making a stupid “mac vs. pc” campaign once again, I think a lot more people would give it a chance. To top it all those commercial simply aren’t funny. They are maybe funny to apple geeks who think they are true (which they obviously aren’t). For example, what the hell is that about networking. Connectiong a camera to a PC is now a problem all of the sudden? It takes about 5 seconds. It’s just plug and play.
If Apple has to sink so low to do another VS campaign they should at least use real comparison.
“Sure, take itunes, imovie and compare them with the windows calculator and clock … It makes no sense.”
Sure it does. They’re talking about the fact that iLife is bundled with every new Mac. What comes bundled with every new PC? Not much beyond a calculator and a clock.
“Connectiong a camera to a PC is now a problem all of the sudden? It takes about 5 seconds. It’s just plug and play.”
Yeah? I just got off the phone with my wife who’s a teacher. She’s spent the last half hour trying to get a supposed “plug & play” printer to work on her PC. In theory it should be that easy, but with Windows, you never know.
Oh, and by the way, my wife never did get the printer to work on the PC.
Instead, she got another teacher’s iBook, plugged it in and printed immediately without even having to install a driver.
ndelc – FUD.
Windows XP is plug and play. What´s your wife using, Windows 95?
Would you buy an Apple computer if it didn´t have the $79 iLife included?
Bill,
No, not FUD. Real world experiences that many have had and continued to have on a daily basis using Windows.
“Would you buy an Apple computer if it didn´t have the $79 iLife included?”
Well, since I’ve been using Macs since 1984, I guess the answer is yes. Why do you ask?
I really wanted the new ad campaign to knock it out of the ballpark but these are not even halfway there. They’re basically “preaching to the choir” type of ads. Mac users will get the joke and laugh, but this whole “cool vs. nerd” scenario is not going to speak to most people that you are trying to convert. If it did, more of them would already be using Macs.
They need to stop comparing themselves to Windows and PC’s, and just speak for themselves. Show the viewers, on a real-world practical level what they are missing by not having a Mac. There is nothing in these ads for someone ignorant of the Mac experience to really hold onto. I don’t think most of the viewers that see this can relate any better to the shiftless grunge dude any better than they can to the suited-up business nerd.
SHOW THE FREAKIN’ OS FOR CRYIN’ OUT LOUD!!!
They need to:
1) Show the interface and a quick rundown of its niceties.
2) Show iChat AV in a 4-way video chat.
3) Show the various real-world things you can do with iLife
4) Have a quick montage of the many other major 3rd parts apps available for OS X
5) Show large high-def QT movie quality
6) Show *real people* doing *real things* with their Macs. Teen making movies, parents making photo books, multimedia pros using pro apps, small office people running their entire operation on Macs.
So on and so forth. You get the idea. And please, please, stop the “sparse white room” ad campaign look. That aesthetic is getting really old. Time to move on.
“Would you buy an Apple computer if it didn´t have the $79 iLife included?”
ndelc> “Well, since I’ve been using Macs since 1984, I guess the answer is yes. Why do you ask?”
——–
That´s my point – Apple trying to make it as a big ad selling deal that it has some software with it (iLife) and Windows doesn´t. Nobody buys a computer because of the extra non OS software that comes with it or doesn´t.
Commercial that didn’t make the cut:
Michael Jackson setting up a “network” with one of his young friends.
Why not “a guy and a girl?”
Because that would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Enjoy!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
“. . . a prerequisite to typing on a keyboard”
“Only if you find the need to type with one hand.”
One hand? You use hands to type? I always wondered what “touch” typing was all about – I use the hunt-and-pecker method.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
“That´s my point – Apple trying to make it as a big ad selling deal that it has some software with it (iLife) and Windows doesn´t. Nobody buys a computer because of the extra non OS software that comes with it or doesn´t.”
Maybe, maybe not. You asked me if I would, but I’m not the typical consumer. I make my living on my Mac, and I’m on it 8-12 hours a day. The majority of the software I use didn’t ship with my Mac, but these spots aren’t targeting people like me. They’re targeting the Average Joe who uses his or her computer for e-mail, surfing the net, and organizing their digital life. For people like that, it’s quite possible that the Mac will ship with everything they need whereas if that same person buys a PC, they will still need to make a further investment on software that doesn’t compare to what ships with the Mac, and they’ll pay a lot more than $79 for it. Sounds like a selling point to me.
PC’s come with solitare. My iPod came with solitare… why not my mac? Chess is great… but I like solitare too.
Anyway, I like these ads. I think we’re all over-analyzing them though. They’re just funny commercials. Commercials aren’t necessarily intended to give you all of the information you need to know about whether or not a product is right for you, but if these ads succeed in getting people to chuckle about problems that they have had with their PCs, contrasted with Macs, then that, along with the fact that macs have been getting alot of media attention these days might make keep macintosh in the back of their minds.
If I see a funny lysol ad, I’m not going to rush out to the store and buy lysol, but if I happen to see it on the shelf at the grocery store, I might buy it because in the back of my mind I associate it with goodness.
There I go over-analyzing the ads too though. Just take them at face value… they’re good for a laugh.
Super Tim,
There’s no such thing as over-analyzing commercials (At least 90% of the time) because there’s nothing coincidental about them.
Anyway to sum it up.. Apple should NOT have:
1. Done a silly comparison campaign
2. Put a little arrogant song in it – I simply hate the song.
3. Gotten a hip kid to represent macs and a fat guy to represent PCs (because that really isn’t funny from a PC user’s point of view). All PC users want now is to show them what exactly you CAN do with a PC instead of thinking “Oh yeah, so true, I can do little more than calculate with my calculator and look at the clock”.
4. Used a white background … I mean… COME ON! No originality?
5. Gotten the kid to butcher the Japanese language ^___^
They should have done just one thing:
1. Done commercials that show the mac’s potential – not even mentioning a pc.
I mean it’s a given that PC users will defend what they’re using when Apple does such insulting commercials. There’s a lot to loose from it. Even if you say they’re targeting a certain group and so forth.. WHY NOT target ALL PC users?