Just when we were starting to think they’d forgotten about them, Apple has posted three new “Get a Mac” television ads:
• Podium: In which PC exhorts the sufferers, “Don’t give up on Vista!”
Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXcimfzLLoY
• Boxer: Some people just want a computer that’s simple and intuitive, that works they way they do. The ring announcer’s closing quote is an instant classic, “Actually, my brother-in-law just got a Mac and loves it!”
Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGusvq70V0
• PR Lady: PC hires PR lady to smooth over Vista disappointment and downplay Mac OS X Leopard in effort to ward off switchers.
Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzhvByaCEic
Apple’s “Get a Mac” Webpages are here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Macaday” for the heads up.]
@ Gil
“Genius Girl is still the hottest…..”
Totally. But did anyone else think the PR babe was Jammie Lee Curtis for a second?
This is getting a bit old. Yeah a lot of people are still using Windoze but I think it’s time to move on to ads which let the OS do the talking.
You have just one too many buttons on that blouse.
Hey MZ!!! That Lady in the suit is young and cute . . . see that’s the joy of being 55 . . . an ever larger percentage of females are younger & cuter! 😀
@ Less is More
That’ll work. Right after we start seeing positive political ads.
Say what you want, but Vista is more stable than Leo.
@jonh
Just an FYI. “Leo” is short for “Leonardo,” not “Leopard.”
You want to show Leopard “working”? There are but a few graphic changes, beyond that it mostly looks “the same”. OK, “close enough for gubmint wurk”.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
What I’d like to show Apple is how a couple of things used to work in Safari 2 but no longer work in Safari 3 – but still work in Firefox.
I’d like to know how to get Folding@Home to run in “nice” mode … again.
I’d like … well, actually, most of the rest is just great. But I don’t dare put it on my wife’s Al iMac at least until 10.5.1, maybe 10.5.2, fixes at least a couple of these problems.
Why show Leopard when that will just give the FUD-meisters a standing target to take pot-shots at. Make them work for it! I haven’t heard of anyone switching back to Tiger from Leopard, which is the focus of these three ads.
Check out
(I won’t mention this again if nobody complains about “this time”)
Only 55 tz? A youngster.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
These ads are not bad, but “Security” is still my favourite.
I saw one of the adds and laughed my head off for the next 5 minutes… there great and very pointed!
Its’ official now Microsoft is the laughting stock of the whole industry… and they earned that title with Vista!
Vista little more that old software… reworked and batched up… all in the package!
Less is More wrote: “… I think it’s time to move on to ads which let the OS do the talking.”
Respectfully, that’s probably not a good idea. The key to advertising was, is, and will always be: “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” In this case, merely showing the OS is trying to sell the steak. Instead, the goal is to help people make an emotional attachment to the produce by showing its benefits. Compare:
They don’t sell jeans by focusing on how the fabric is made.
They don’t sell cars by focusing on the auto’s fuel injection system.
They don’t sell gum by focusing on the ingredients.
They don’t sell Mickey-D’s by focusing on how the cows are slaughtered.
Look at laundry detergent. They sell it by simply saying it gets your clothes cleaner, it does a better job than other detergents, or you’ll FEEL BETTER (fresher, prouder, happy, etc.) if you use their detergent.
To do good advertising for OS X, they need to help people have an emotional attachment to the OS, not brag about the advances in QuickTime or that there are MORE! EMOTICONS! IN! ICHAT!
Personally, I think they’re doing a great job selling the sizzle and not the steak (AKA selling benefits, not features). The massive sales and profits earned by Apple seems to prove that point.
Apparently I’m in the minority here but to me these ads don’t seem quite as funny as many of the earlier ones. But maybe they will be good for their intended audience, people who haven’t heard about all the problems with Vista.
@ Gil
Maybe you forgot the one with Giselle.
Raymond from DC: PR Lady’s “No comment”, while not as good as the “sad realization” of an earlier ad, is priceless. But I don’t understand why some don’t want Apple to show Macs or Leopard in action. Virtually every iPhone ad does exactly that, often quite dramatically.
It works for the iPhone because the multitouch GUI is totally different than what’s out there and you grasp this new concept in 30 seconds. Also, the features such as a full blown web browser stand out by themselves. However, the distinction between Mac OS X and Windows is not that clear unless you actually use the OSes. What can you say in 30 seconds to show that Mac OS X is miles ahead of Windows? You may show Time Machine, but you’ll spend most of the time explaining what Time Machine is and why you should back up your files instead of what Time Machine can do and how it does it.
Renderdog is right.
These latest commercials have really run out of steam. The earlier ones were much more subtle, clever, and funnier.
The PR babe is Mary Chris Wall, best known for her role on the PBS kids series Wishbone.
Never let people who know nothing about audience tell you something about PR. Do you think an ad that shows Leopard in action will make a big impression with a television audience? Why? You have 30 seconds to make your point. Not only that, it has to be memorable, repeatable, and simple. That is not the forum for discussing OS differences.
In short, the people who want to see “the OS do the talking” are tone-deaf and know nothing about the area they claim to know so much about.
I don’t know why, but when PR lady was talking about “upgrading to a more familiar experience”, I kept thinking she was talking about herself. Trade in younger g/f for the older more familiar one!
Jonh, more stable? For what? Hardly anything runs in it correctly.
PR people use Macs…
@MZ
Every (current)iMac I’ve seen has a gloss black Apple logo which matches the black display bezel. Not a chrome logo. Just curious why the ad makers favored a white logo, clearly with Apple’s consent.
Not even much point in poking fun at Vista. Leopard is more user friendly and users will be satisfied for the most part. (I’ve used Vista Ultimate in Parallels on my MacBook Pro 2.33 and it required too much processing power). I’m more than satisfied running Windows XP Pro for my Windows needs.
I never did like smear advertisements. It’s okay to boost your products, but not by tearing down another product.
I guess these ads are meant to be funny, but they really just seem like a cheap shot at Microsoft. Like Microsoft gives a damn.
The older model has a less twitchy uvula.
The Podium ad is improperly named. He is standing behind a Lectern and not on a Podium. The ad shoud be named Lectern.
Pet peeve, I’ll take a few breaths and move on.
A good example of what is wrong with Microsoft and Windows is the Zip extraction tool. What does it say when you right click on a .zip file? “Extract All…”
What happens when you click on that? You get a ridiculous Wizard that forces you to click thru pointless screens just to get the job done.
The command says “Extract All”. So why can’t Windows just extract the damn file to a sub folder in that directory, pop up the newly created folder with the files in view and be done with it?
Or anytime you attach a portable drive. Notice after notice after notice of what’s happening. How about just a simple popup teliing you that it’s working? And why can’t it then just open the “My Computer” and show the newly added drive? No, it has to bring up another wizard to get in your way, asking you if you want to transfer the entire contents of the new drive to yours, which doesn’t have global options the very first time it runs to tell it “Never Bother Me With This Again On Any Device Ever You Retards”. For that I have to dig around in some other collection of checkboxes and settings to tell it to leave me the hell alone.
The Mac leaves you alone unless it actually is important. After all, you have better things to do.