During the Olympics, Apple has debuted three new 30-second Macintosh commercials on U.S. broadcast and cable networks.
The new, rather remarkable ads feature at the same “Mac Genius” who interacts with everyday personal computer users.
The ads are entitled “Basically,” “Labor Day,” and “Mayday.”
In “Basically,” an Apple Genius points out there are a lot of things that separate a Mac from an ordinary computer, like great apps that come built in.
In “Labor Day,” the same Apple Genius shows a soon-to-be father all the amazing things he can make with iPhoto.
In “Mayday,” an Apple Genius shows a fellow passenger how easy it is to make great home movies with iMovie. All before the tray tables are returned to their upright position.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously these ads are not targeted at the typical MacDailyNews reader and therefore might, upon first viewing, seem simplistic or even stupid. These ads are not at all stupid, they’re simply talking to people who speak a much more basic tech language than we do. When it comes to these ads, we are all paleontologists being forced to watch Dinosaur Train.
MacDailyNews readers, you are hereby absolved from watching these ads. They are not for your consumption. Pay no attention to these ads whatsoever while you share them repeatedly with your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and anyone else you know who might be in the market for their first real personal computer.
Every Mac user, especially the longtime Mac users who’ve been to the edge and back, should welcome new Mac users whether they know exactly what they’ve just purchased or have much yet to learn.
To take a line from a very early Mac TV ad (second ad below), “The real genius of Macintosh is that you don’t have to be a genius to use it.”
The ad title “Basically” says it all. These ads are appealing to a very basic target audience – the broadest possible target audience – and therefore represent a rather significant milestone:
Apple has finally returned to marketing the computer for the rest of us to the rest of us.
Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal, to take back the computer business from Microsoft, is being realized. These ads are a part of that effort. Apple’s Mac has regained its strength to the point where it can fight for the wide personal computer market again. Microsoft, if they were cognizant, should be shaking in their boots. It’s 1984 all over again and, for the Mac at least, that is a very, very good thing.
