Attention 50+ million Apple iPod owners: you are oppressed sheep. And you’re stupid chimps, too. And jackasses.
You’re like some mutant woolly simian amalgams that pull small carts. And you stink, too.
This is the genius marketing message offered by SanDisk. Supposedly, after calling you all of the above, plus a mindless puppet, among other things, you are supposed to scamper across the pasture baa baa-ing to the nearest purveyor of also-ran electronics gear and pick yourself up a SanDisk Sansa e200, you idiot.
Oh, yeah, you stupid sheep, you’re supposed to stop using iTunes and go use some “alternative” music jukebox and online music outfit that may or may not be in business next year because you don’t want to be a stinking iPod-loving chimp all your life, you jackass puppet you.
Can you get that simple message through your dense herd-loving skulls, you morons?!
We doubt you dumb-asses can handle it, so here’s a website with a bunch of posters, a manifesto, and pictures of you as a woolly farm animal. Study it really hard, you idiots: http://www.idont.com/
Apple’s gotta be paying off SanDisk or at least their ad agency, Grey San Francisco. Nobody can be that incompetent, can they?
And to think that you guys were complaining about Apple’s Intel ad.
suppose they’ve taken the ‘think different’ campaign a little too far
Sure insult the very people you want to use your product, with a single OS, how about supporting three OS’s like iPod does.
Sandisk? Oh yeah, ewe would. Shear brilliance. You’ll see them on the lamb very soon instead of ramming this idiocy to anyone who will listen.
You really don’t think most PC people belive this do you? If ITMS was so bad one of the other stores would have caught on by now, truth is I think most of the people who try ITMS like it, works on the PC like it does on the Mac, it’s simply a good program.
Sounds similar to the approach of Apple’s 1984 ad. So when Apple does it, it’s OK??????
Its one thing for a company to promote their product as better, or the best in a certain catigory, its another thing to have a side by side and show the pros and cons for both, and hope that the one you are promoting has more pros then the other, its also another thing to BASH the competition in hope they will belive you. However to create an entire ad campaign based on trying to convert people away from somthing for no reason other then they have run out of ideas and are still losing money. Thats just SAD!
Only supports WAV files. Wow.
This entire ‘ad campaign’ is laughable.
Insulting the people you are trying to lure away from the competition.
Trying to look like a blog site when you’re not.
Proposing that ipod users lock themselves into fewer formats and fewer OS choices.
It’s a joke.
Dave – I think Apple has learned that doesn’t work, they went through it again with the “Switch” ads, nobody listened, then released the iPod and PC people wrote letters begging for a PC iPod, even when other players existed at larger compacities and for less money. Everyone has the right to choose, calling those who don’t choose as you do, “sheep” is poor marketing.
“Sounds similar to the approach of Apple’s 1984 ad. So when Apple does it, it’s OK??????”
Actually DAVE, if that really is your name, it’s more akin to the Apple Lemmigns ad, which they have been lambasted over for years and Apple has unofficially admitted probably wasnt’t a good ad in hidsight.
The 1984 ad was revolutionary, on many levels.
Schmutz, no one ‘wrote Apple’ begging for a PC iPod, that was part of the plan all along. And for the switch ads, I think people underestimate the impact it had on the general public. Maybe the marketshare didnt swell overnight, but it definitely got PC users thinking and will just further reinforce in their minds whatever future Apple ad campaigns are launched.
It’s a big part of the reason why over half of Apple retail store’s customers are first time Mac buyers.
Can I get a frying pan to whach that guy BACK to sanity?
Funny who their glowing reviews are from;
C|Net and anythingbutipod.com…WOW!
Apple certainly uses a similar, though much less agressive, approach in both their intel chip ads and the current campaign. I would say, though, that Apple can actually support their case with more than “you could join a byzantine subscription service!”
Certainly, there are people that get an iPod simply because their friends have one or for a fashion statement, though most of them are probably in high school. However, the whole iPod + iTunes + iTMS package is superior to the Random portable Player + Napster/Real/URGE + Some Windows compatible media player “plays for sure” scenario.
RELEASE THE ZEALOTS!
In that ad agency, under the “bios” section, they have pictures of each member.
All of the men’s heads are cut off. Is that because they are bald?
MDN MW = “hair” I’m not making this stuff up, folks!
another product that will fail.
This just shows how desperate and scared they really are with the iPod.
In fact, the iPod represents what that iDon’t website is supposed to: non-conformity. Who ever seen white earbuds before the iPod?
The iPod is a cultural phenomenon because it’s cool, hi-tech, and syncs so flawlessly with iTunes for managing your music.
They’re trying to create an anti-conformity movement that doesn’t even exist! Those movements can only manifest itself through grassroots sentiments, not by greedy corporations and their slick marketing.
Oh, Ampar,
That was baa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aad.
Rather than just complain, do what I did and write an email to these stunada’s letting tham know how ineffective and ridiculous their “grassroots” campaign is. My point is that probably all of their designers built that campaign on Macs. Talk about corporate sellouts. I hate when corporations mask themselves as “grassroots”.
From the review to their sandisk DAP
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/03/sandisk-sansa-e200-series-review.php
And I quote:
“The only video type supported natively by the Sansa e200 is QuickTime. “
Yeah baby! Thats sticking it to the man!!!!!
That’s funny, iDon’t feel like a jackass..
Gee you could say that about windows users.Oppressed sheep indeed.
And what’s up with that scroll ring on the Sensa?!
SanDisk is trying to be the non-conformist, yet they conform to Apple’s basic design concepts and trends (circular scroll navigation, thin hardware, black color).
I think Apple legal should investigate that scroll ring mechanism and see if any patents were violated!
BuriedCaesar: What the flock?
Look at sony’s phones… Not neutral designs but still light years ahead of Apple’s iphone which;s fate not even know.
How can Apple even maintain it’s 10x the value from 3 years ago?
It cant.
Stock is poised to go under $60 and maybe even $50 in the short term. ( 1-4 months )
You guys shear are getting on my nerves with these puns. You better hoof it out of here. And don’t come back as Tom Cruise, either – you’re not pulling the wool over my eyes.
“Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
John 10:25-30
‘Nuff said.
Schmutz! I don’t remeber a petition, except to make it 98 compatible, but I do remener articles of PC people complaining that it wasn’t PC user out of the box, ironic actually. I think there were complaints about the music program that firdt shipped with the PC version also, too lazy to do a Google search. Think i read it on Slash dot.
Attention 50+ million Apple iPod owners: you are oppressed sheep. And you’re stupid chimps, too. And jackasses.
Anyone up for a class action lawsuit?
Defamation of character and libel.
If everyone sent in one dollar, heck 99¢, just the price of one iTunes song, 50 million of “us” could wipe the legal floor with these fools.
Any takers?
I meant that the complaints were on the fist generation iPod.
Their slogan should be “iDon’t…..Think Different”
iPod users are way less likely to be sheep than Windoze users.
LeftRearTire,
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I think you’re right, couldn’t find anything but the 98 petition. I remeber complaints that they didn’t release the Windows version at the same time as the Mac version… but I’ve been wrong before.
The next campaign: Stupid, buy from ME!!! Not from them…
“If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.”
Exodus 21:20-21
The Bible is so awesome.
They try to be different but resort to the old and resolved battery issue from the Nitwit brothers?
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t Apple use sandisk components somewhere?
Wonder if SD’s head honcho apporved this ad
It’s sad when people are labelled sheep for choosing the superior product.
I bought a 4G iPod so the sheep are the 5G iPod owners following me.
Seriously, it is ironic that SanDisk offers the same features as every other MP3 player that is not an iPod (eg. DRM WMA, FM tuners, etc.) and yet it has the balls to accuse iPod owners of being sheep.
Visit the Link by iMick, lots of iPod basher and complement about the review. Reading down and I saw this
“After upgrading the firmware from .01.00.00 to .01.00.07a it locks up my computer and I am unable to transfer files using Rhapsody. The screen goes blank with alternating vertical stripes and the player hangs. Return product to Best Buy as defective. Also, noticed product pulled from website. Hmm, I wonder why??”
LoL
in Italy from first press of olive oil you get extravirgin, then after the secon on you get olive oil, then what remains, basically just crushed pits, it is called sansa, the lowest quality.
Wow. Napster is now free.
I ordered a MacBook Friday, it was shipped same day from Suzhou, China. It arrived in Indianapolis today.
I guess what they are trying to say is that it is only O.K. if Microsoft has a monopoly. Because I have never heard any of these guys complaining about them having a monopoly (and abusing it to put competitors out of business). Yet from what I gather this is what most Mac users are about, not wanting to blindly follow the masses and use an inferior product. Sadly, I don’t believe that the iPod and iTunes is an inferior product. I hope that it remains the best and doesn’t become another Microsoft.
Cheers
Give me a darn MP3 that I can download legal songs to (and I mean a huge selection: everything from U2 to The Who), that works well and WORKS ON THE MAC or shut up and sit down. You can’t sell a product on the fact is isn’t another one. Look! It’s not an iPod! Buy it!
“Not neutral designs but still light years ahead of Apple’s iphone which;s fate not even know.”
HUH? WTF? How can a product be “years ahead” of another product that’s no even out yet? No such thing as an Apple iPhone, dork!
I was just looking at the SanDisk e200 “MP3 player”, and saw that they are basing the music playing capacity on 64Kbs WMA files. The iPod goes by 128Kbs AAC, so SanDisk is trying to make it look like their 4GB music player has double the capacity of an iPod 4GB music player…
I guess only sheep would want better than 64Kbs audio.
Not impressed.
Be a unique non-conformist individual! Buy our product! Because all unique non-conformist individuals buy our product!
The site felt familiar, and then I got it. It reminds me of MDN and it’s sheeple comments about Windows users.
It should be obvious to all who post here that calling Windows users names will not entice them to switch to Macs.
hehe, 2 clicks deep and I made it to apples ipod store page
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Ironic, that users of an Apple product are now being called sheep with a herd mentality. How times have changed…
The difference:
* Windows sucked back then (it’s somewhat better now, but so is Mac OS X).
* iPod/iTunes/iTMS is the best.
Now, if Apple couldn’t dislodge near-majority (but sucky) Windows with a superior product, how can “the competition” hope to dislodge near-majority iPod/iTunes/iTMS with crappy products? That’s right, they can’t, until someone tries to be creative an do something really different from iPod instead of just trying to copy the iPod. So who’s the real sheep here, customers who choose the obviously superior product, or companies who blindly follow Apple’s lead without innovation?
My boss just bought a Sansa. She had come to me a couple of weeks ago and expressed an interest in getting an iPod; I have an iPod (video) and a nano, I seem like the right person to ask. Instead she goes to a Best Buy, without asking me my opinion, and some idiot sells her a Sansa. My boss has got to be the most computer illiterate person I know and the Sansa is just making matters worse. It took me an hour and a half just to get her up and running with Windows Media Player. And she is using Windows Media Player because the Rhapsody software wouldn’t install from the install disc provided by SanDisk. Now she is on Windows Media Player and decides she wants to buy a song… I’m mildly curious becasue I want to see if the purchased song will even play on her Sansa. Needless to say we could easily buy a song, but it wouldn’t download to her computer… stuck. I E-mail Microsoft tech support and I kid you not, I get a 3 PAGE E-mail in return of instructions on how to fix the problem. A pain in the ass!
Folks, take my word for it, buy an iPod, use iTunes and save yourself the headache. If I’m a sheep to SanDisk then so be it, but I’ll be a sheep that can actually use their music player.
The next silhouett-ad should be like this ; A flock of goats with white earbuds is walking around a dumspter fillew with easy to recognize SanDisk products and eating/chewing on them… could be fynny?
Sheesh. Did you see the price?
You can get an iPod on Apple’s site for less, with a bigger screen, and more disk space.
What B.S.
I went to one of the pages on sheep hatters and they had a big ad for iPods.
Cool!
We’re actually using iPod too, but we were just very passionate to make a campaign calling ourselves sheeps
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you know why? because we don’t want other people to get this superior product as we’re using
Baaa…
I quite like it actually, especially as I can hear the real ones bleating outside at this moment!
However… if you’re going to do this sort of thing, then your alternative has to be THE ONE, otherwise you’ve wasted time and money.
SanDisc’s tragedy is that the product looks to be just another sub-iPod knockoff…
$280 for 6 f*cking gig? What a ripoff…
the sad irony is that the people who created that campaign i.e. the commercial artists probably ALL have iPods…
I’m an iChimp and I love it! Heck I’m even an iNerd. Calling me names is soo childish.
Give them your feedback at:
Sheepherder@idont.com
MW: trouble. I sense trouble for the “sheepherder”
In 1984 there weren’t millions of PC users to insult. Apple was pointing to the future.
So the comparison isn’t valid in the least…
Actually,the biggest IRONY of this is that the Sansa pod they promote is about as close to copying the iPod as they could get without a lawsuit.
So, who is the sheep and who is the shepherder?
I think we know.
Went to site on windows PC – using non IE browser for security and so most bells and whistles disabled. Site did not even correctly test for non flash enabled browsers (browser ID test based on useragent text so fooled by browser with useragent spoofing), thus totally non navigable.
Not very impressive really – just a black page, no option of plain text alternative links, either use flash or **** off, so I left.
iDont want anything else but an iPod playing iMusic!
You aren’t providing the *alternative*!
How about you let me know when you decide to *stand up* and *follow* Apple with software that runs on both Windows and Macs. Why don’t you stop being a *iPuppet* to Microsoft.
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP
~
Oh, and you might want to get some 3rd party companies to make accessories for your products…
I know that I can buy almost anything for any one of my 5 iPods at thousands of locations world wide… thank you very much.
iDont like you anymore SanDisk. iDont think your reverse psychology sheep advert has worked on me. iDont consider myself as part of the heard, iChoose freely what I buy and use and Apples iPod + iTunes is the BEST on the consumer market, iPod is here to STAY… stop crying about it and recognize.
There is a huge ad for iPod + iTunes on one of their links in the “propoganda” section. These guys are too stupid.
Agree with DMJ. Their underlying marketing is sound: they’re not after the 75% of people that love (or already own) iPods, they’re after the 15% that don’t. If Sony had adopted this strategy two years ago, they’d now have about 20% of the market.
It is an exact anaology of Apple vs Microsoft – big guy and the underdog. Thing is we Mac users feel like the underdog already, so we’re both glad of and defensive about the iPod’s success. This doesn’t necessarily apply to Windows users who just see iPod as a dominating (and therefore ever so slightly evil) market leader.
Offending us (iPod owners) doesn’t matter. They’re after iPod haters, and there are a significant number of them out there.
Whether the creative work works or not, we’ll have to wait and see. In my view, everything falls to the ground as soon as you notice that the SanDisk player is clearly a crap copy of an iPod. Who’s the sheep now, eh?
Geeze, what are them liddle black marbles all over the paddock?
Whatever, that’s not going to change my mind to use a dumbass player from sandisk or anyone else for that matter. iPod rules!
I sent sheepherder@idont.com the following:
Dear Sheepherder:
I do think for myself. I am not a sheep. That is why I refuse to use Microsoft Windows PC and I use a Mac running OS-X instead. That is why I use an elegant, thoughtfully designed portable digital music player/music store combination. My music player/music store combination works on multiple platforms. It is not joined at the hip to the insecure disaster that is Microsoft Windows or the kludgy unstable mess that is Windows Media Player. I am afraid that you have shown up at the race track after the race is over and the runners have gone home.
Good luck, you are really going to need it.
Shieldzee
well no wonder. follow the link to the ad agency, click on bios and see who the director of analytics is. It’s Michael Moore!!! No wonder.
other clients include Oracle and McAfee. These guys are on a hot streak!
I’m not a sheep. I got a 1st gen iPod on the day is was released, and it’s still going strong. Scratched to hell and with a bruised LCD where I came off my bike and landed on it, but no other problems.
I’ve been tempted by new models, but this one still does what I bought it for, which was to hold a good amount of music in a small package, is easy to use and with a decent battery life (it still has a decent battery life). So though tempted, I’ve not had a good reason to get a new one.
iWon’t. Sorry SanDisk.
This page was written by a bunch of corporate hacks desperate to sound hip. My favorite quotes:
DON’T LET “THE MAN” TELL YOU WHAT WALLPAPER TO USE,
RIGHT-CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW AND CHOOSE “SET AS BACKGROUND” TO PIMP YOUR DESKTOP.
and (referring to a link to theonion.com)…
SARCASM BABY. WE LOVE IT.
Who talks like that? This site is comedy.
I read the first page of their web site.
I can’t wait to get me some of those yummy-sounding new iTators. Apparently you can buy this delectable tuber at the iTatorship.
Hoo-doaggies!
I hear comparisons of the iTunes Combination to being the windows of the player industry. THat is not the case. Apple is not playing cut throat industry compromising games they don’t quell the creativity of their competitors. They just a good product. Something money bags has NEVER been able to do. SanDisk is so hopeless begin stuck with windows that they must fall to the lows used by republican political campaigns. Sad. Very sad. I told the anything but iPod people to get a life. How absurd.
They have the nerve to charge for the t-shirts! I was hoping to get a freebie or 3 to clean the wheels on my car. Bah!
Oh I really meant…. baaaaahhhh!
Such a sad advertisement! The website is depressing.
I’m an iChimp! Woohoo!
The thing that cracks me up about the site is that on their Propaganda page they list Pitchfork and The Onion. Wow! They’re really up on what the hipsters are into. I would bet that the majority of the staff at Pitchfork uses iPods since, well, most of the indie labels already have deals in place with Apple. And The Onion? Hey, great site but what is this 1994? Let’s get a little up to date. It’s kind of like saying “Hey kids. We’re hip. We’re cool. We got Billy Joel’s – An Innocent Man when it came out. That’s our street cred. Totally down with that Nirvana too. Have you heard them? Man, you gotta get that disk. Oh, you did? You’re more into Husker Dü? Who’s that?”
Here’s the letter I sent to sheepherder:
Sorry sheepherder, but I have a problem.
You see, I chose to use an Apple Macintosh as my computing platform of choice. It has served me well and kept me gainfully employed since 1984. I don’t intend to quit using my Mac any time soon.
Therefore, when I got my digital music player, I chose the one that works seamlessly and integrates perfectly with my computer of choice. To date, that’s an Apple iPod. I am extremely satisfied with it.
Now, if SanDisk were to offer an experience of similar ease and integration on the Macintosh platform, I would consider it. However, the only people who can use SanDisk Sansa digital music players are those sheep who have been herded onto the Microsoft cattle car, ready to be driven to the concentration camp of VISTA (that’s an acronym for Virii, Infections, Spyware, Trojans and Adware, BTW).
Sorry, you’ll have to do better to get my dollars.
Can someone please explain the Apple “Lemmings” story? I’ve seen the commercial, but what was the outcome? Was there a back-lash?
Thanks
I sent a very polite email informing them I will be buying Lexar flash cards for my camera now. I encourage everyone to do the same.
DON’T BUY ANYTHING from SANDISK was the concensus of everyone in in the three offices I just spoke with… not smart of SanDisk to be so hostile to iPod users…
wow im the 1 billionth visitor again
mb i better go contact the prize dept.
oh yeah love the posters and tshirts
im getting em all
pull my strings mr jobs
terrible marketing. how can so many companies miss the mark so frequently?
iDont want to ever buy anything from SanDisk again.
I wonder why their RSS resonse page has no articles in it!
feed://www.idont.com/news/?feed=rss2&p=4
Now this pisses me off. If you are going to have a comments page, post the comments. This can only mean there is a backlash.
You guys are so very very sick. It’s only an ad. It’s supposed to be funny. And I think it is. And yes, I do own an iPod.
Funny how the Mac-user has made the best choice while the Windows-user is a sheep. Still the iPod-user ain’t a sheep..
I hope you don’t mind me saying this again – You guys are so very very sick..
To tell you the truth. I do not own an ipod and I found the “idont” campaign, hilarious and interesting. I think…. thats what they’re looking for?…… Im actually going to buy this thing pretty soon.
– More features
– Bigger Brighter screen
– Expandable Memory {They’re working on the 4GB chip to be realesed in the near future} Which means 6GB becomes a 10GB, Sweet!}
– Its something different… You “IChimp’s”
Hi. It’s a dangerous business going out your front door.
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