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New "Get a Mac" TV ads
Klaidas writes "Apple has introduced 3 new "Get a Mac" TV ads: "Accident", "Angle/Devil" and "Trust Mac" " Normally, posting ads would be make me cry, but these are genuinely funny and well done.
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Does the 'Angle/Devil' one show how a Mac can help kids with their geometry homework?
This guy's the limit!
...where the hell is Mel Brooks when you need him?
...and, yes, the new ones are funny - keep 'em coming! :)
"Sorry about the 'up yours, PC!'"
I think Slate got it right when it comes to these ads. They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me. That, and the fact that they kinda make me happy that I'm running windows (not right now, right now it's Fedora all the way, I double-boot) instead of apple. It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
They also contain alot of stuff that's plain wrong. For instance, Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it. Set the date and time, account password and keyboard configuration, and bobs your uncle! Same thing with my digital camera, that works fine with windows, contrary to what one of the ads say.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is a stellar OS, far superior to windows, I just don't like these ads.
http://tv.truenuff.com/mac
...that Hemos was the point person for slashvertisements?
Now I'm confused. If I want to get my ad on slashdot is or is not Hemos the person I am supposed to contact? If the policy has changed, we should be notified, no?
They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me.
Far nicer than the political ads that are swamping televisions this election year.
It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
Actually, it points out what people already know: Corporations and businesses use Windows PCs. Windows for many is Word and Excel. And almost everyone who has used a Windows PC at work has hated it at some point. Showing you a desktop after logging in but not being able to do anything for an additional 30-120 seconds. Programs with odd names performing illegal operations and offering them the change to debug, only to do nothing useful. And so on.
The Mac is being shown in the light of being a computer for your home life, far away from spreadsheets and Active Directory, where your photos, home movies, and music play a much stronger role, and showing ease-of-use for doing nice things with that media.
Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it.
Remember that the majority of new Windows PC owners buy an OEM machine and can barely plug in all the color-coded cables. They turn it on and the Windows setup wizard starts as you said. Fine. Now your OEM machine is detecting the 3-in-one inkjet-scanner-fax printer that came bundled free with the computer. Windows is now pompting them to install three items it has detected. Each one throwing up the New hardware wizard. Not to mention the computer's system image was from 4 months ago, so they need to download 55MB of patches on their dial-up connection in order to be "safe".
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I'm sorry, it's the classic marketing mistake. Apple's competitors make the same one when they market their "not-an-iPods". You don't build market share by capitalizing on the fact that you don't have market share.
In other words, you don't insult your potential market. Macintosh has a lot of image they can sell, sell simply, and sell well, and yet they focus on the PC's problems?
Just because a large portion of Mac users seem to spend every waking hour mocking Windows doesn't mean that obsession is marketable (or is even what sensible Mac Fans do).
Spend twenty years designing (mostly)quality computers, develop an operating system and a multitude of other software apps that are highly regarded by just about everyone, and maybe in your free time create a portable music player and an online store that gets the ball rolling on a new form of media distribution.
Then, perhaps, a website primarily for computer nerds might feel compelled to talk about your ad.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
You might want to try VideoLAN - VLC media player. I thought QuickTime was pretty good until I tried the VLC player.
why Apple, won't you let me run your OS on other Intel hardware?
My own answer to this would be that it's because they're a gnat's pube away from becoming a software company, and they're holding on to their bespoke hardware business for dear life.
Nope, let me clear it up for you:
Apple is not a software vendor, Apple is also not a hardware vendor. Apple is an experience vendor.
To get you the "Macintosh Experience" for which you're paying the big bucks they need tight control and integration between the hardware and the software. The reason why MacOS X is able to give a better useability experience is because Apple knows exactly what hardware it'll be running on unlike Microsoft does with Windows.
With a PC there are thousands upon thousands of motherboards, CPUs, hard drives, video cards, sound cards, network cards, etc, etc, etc. The combinations are endless and people expect Windows to not only work, but work well, on every single combination.
I would be surprised if the number of macintosh computers that are currently supported in Tiger reached beyond double digits but even if it did it is still a lot smaller than infinity. Because Apple knows exactly what hardware the OS will be running on they can take full advantage of it whereas on the PC side of things you still have for example: 64bit CPUs running 32bit OS's and the latest version of Windows not even supporting SATA, a 3+ year old technology, out of the box.
Think consoles: PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc. They are severly underpowered if you compare them to a PC, yet they can push out graphics rivaling them, why? Because the developers know exactly what hardware they are coding for and can take full advantage of it.
That is why Apple prevents OS X from running on just any beige box. It wasn't designed to, so if they allowed it people would try it, it would crash, not work right and people would say that MacOS X sucked.
A Mac is more than its software. You can install OS X on your homebrew PC 'til the fat man croaks, but where's your command key, your startup chime, your flashing disk on startup, your magnetic power connector, your backlit keyboard, your FireWire target disk mode? Oops, they didn't survive the installation. Trivial, maybe, but these are the sorts of details that fucking make the Mac what it is.
A Mac is more than hardware, either, as you pointed out. Its soul may be somewhere in the code, but that code is spread between both hardware and software. It's an integrated platform, and to force it into components like it were a beige-box PC sort of misses the point, I think.
Finally, if you find the Mac guy "bloody annoying," you need to relax. It's just a commercial, and obviously not targeted at the likes of you.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
The irony is that the PC Guy is actually the one who's interesting and funny. He's more memorable. The Mac Guy is the actual dweeb. So thanks for the ads Apple, I'd rather go with the PC Guy. The Mac Guy exemplifies everything I hate about Apple: How they market for I'm-better-than-you cool-rich-kids with bleacher jeans that go to starbucks and are a part of that race of MTV drones who somehow have a smug feeling of superiority for being ignorant.
Yeah cause, you know, the Mac user is their target audience and all ...
BOO CREEPY FOOT DOCTOR.
HORRAY BEER.
I picked Red Stripe last time I was in the supermarket. I'm pretty sure some beer connoisseur can ream me for all the reasons why I shouldn't have bought it... but the commercial was funny. I can see a student debating between an Apple and a Dell pick the Mac because of a commercial.
Ads sell.
True, the Mac is now an Intel PC wrapped in a nice design. However, these commercials rarely speak of the hardware. Apple never says our Intel box is better than yours. They say our design, our interface, our security, our innovative ideas - our end product is better than yours.
The Mac is the iPod. The difference is, the iPod was introduced before the personal music player boom and the iPod has yet to isolate itself like the original Apple Computers. Most people will agree that the iPod is popular and superior for a few reasons: 1) The physical design, 2) The almost perfect integration with iTunes and 3) The iTunes Music Store. The Mac is out of favor with the public due to it's roots. However, the same principles still apply to it's superiority: 1) The physical design, 2) The software and hardware are built and tested to near perfection and 3) OS X.
Looking at each in more depth.
1) The physical design is highly praised and often imitated. This is rarely argued.
2) Unlike Microsoft's Windows, the hardware and software can be tailored specifically for each other. At times Apple has released an OS update because a new Mac model needed a small software revision. Microsoft could never make software changes to support all PC hardware configurations. For this reason, you will never see OS X on other Intel hardware.
3) OS X defines the Mac. It is the way that Intel chip interfaces with the user. It is unique to the Mac like iTunes to the iPod. OS X is another highly praised and often imitated aspect of the Mac. This also is rarely argued.
Since the average consumer does not order a PC with *nix, the real question that remains is what makes every non-Apple Intel box different? The price, plain and simple. As many car manufacturers like to say, this leaves the Mac in a class of it's own.
So what's not accurate about the new ads? Is the magnetically connected power cable a big hoax? Are spyware and viruses not a significant problem on a Windows computer? Does Windows offer a anything comparable to the iLife suite of programs with each install? Is getting the average Dell (including not just assembling the hardware but deleting the 200 trialware programs installed) up and running out of the box indeed easier than the iMac?
I'll grant you the freezing, then rebooting Windows days are behind them but really, what is Apple lying about in these ads?
And for the record, yes, I was with the PC crowd when Apple was still stuck in the 80's with their crappy Mac OS 9.
I'm sorry, it's the classic marketing mistake. Apple's competitors make the same one when they market their "not-an-iPods". You don't build market share by capitalizing on the fact that you don't have market share.
In other words, you don't insult your potential market. Macintosh has a lot of image they can sell, sell simply, and sell well, and yet they focus on the PC's problems?
Just because a large portion of Mac users seem to spend every waking hour mocking Windows doesn't mean that obsession is marketable (or is even what sensible Mac Fans do).
Secret of marketing: Nobody identifies with the butt of a marketing campaign, including the "PC" character in these commercial. The bald, plumpish, corrected vision types with their carefully engineered VBA-enhanced spreadsheet applications at work cheerfully latch on to iPhoto slideshows with musical accompaniment that work out of the box and make their wives and kids smile.
Only a few bitter "mom's basement" types actually latch on to loser-types in advertising.
How many Mac users even care at this point what the PC offers?
1) After being 0wn3d. Again.
2) After having to buy a desktop full of shareware to get the functionality Mac provides out of the box. Again.
3) After having their 6 year-old sign up for MSN/AOL because "it was on the desktop."
4) After the latest Microsoft updates started up all those insecure services. Again. For the seventh year running.
5) After being asked for the millionth time by PC users, "what did you use to put together that great slideshow of the cub scout soapbox derby?"
The Mac/PC campaign uses humor to deflate the Microsoft/Dell "juggernaut", and remind that there is an alternative. A humorous nod to their daily frustrations resonates pretty well with consumers, combining that with the implicit promise that Apple does it different seems like a pretty smart campaign to me.
Free Adam Smith! (Or best offer.)
I know a lot of technologically minded folk who like the ads and think they are funny.
To some degree, they must work as they are still being produced and laptop sales are on a dramatic rise.
Apple wouldn't keep paying for expensive advertising slots (emmys) if they didn't work for most people. Plus they are aimed mostly at someone just wanting a computer and not a system administrator job, along with kids going to college who may want a new computer.
If you can't even find the Magsafe one funny though (the most strightforward and accurate of the whole set of ads) I think you need to examine weithr or not you are simply mentally resisting liking a Mac because they are a Mac.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My Mac Mini at home only has 2 USB ports, and because I didn't want to drop $120 on a keyboard & mouse for a $450 computer, I have no free USB ports by default. Instead, I have an extra device sitting with my mini (USB hub) complete with associated wires.
Pardon me, but something is fishy about this part of your story - why are you not plugging the mouse into the keyboard USB extender? At most the keyboard and mouse together should take up one USB plug, which is why all macs come with at least two.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Between the two, Windows is able to be more productive, consistent (home & end keys - nuf sed), meaningful (how often do I really need to scroll to the top of my terminal window's history vs going to the front of my current line, why would Home & End be bound this way by default?)
Since OS X ships with Bash, I simply use Ctr-A and Ctrl-E for that. I have never missed home and end in terminals nor do I use them in Linux, as they are too far removed from the primary area of the keyboard.
For single lines in textareas of browsers, you can simply use Pageup/PageDown to go to the start and end of line respectivly - this is the only time when I ever used to use Home/End they way you are speaking of and really it's smarter to fold this ability into the same keys where it makes sense.
Why you think Windows is in any way more productive when it does not ship with a real shell is a mystery. I'd perhaps give Linux to you execot that Expose as an app switcher is a pretty big productivity boost.
and waste less of my CPU on stupid and meaningless crap like Dashboard, software rendered drop shadows & transparencies, etc.
GPU - all that is hardware accellerated. Kind of removes your whole point there. If your GPU is otherwise sitting idle why not make use of it?
Believe it or not, I value responsiveness, consistency, and day-to-day usability over polish.
So do I. That's why I use a Mac - polish is removed easily as it only covers the ugliness beneath. Good design goes through and through a product, which is what the Mac offers and why I switching away from Linux as my primary home computer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And that's when I stopped listen to your crazy rantings.
I know it's all the rage to use the style of argument, but it undermines your credibility. If you only read the assertion and not the support you are not addressing those arguments and thus your comments have failed before they have begun.
Apple sells hardware bundled with software. They do their damnedest to make sure their software only runs on their hardware, and vice versa.
Apple sells hardware/software bundles, but to argue they go out of their way to make sure their hardware won't work with other people's software is ridiculous. They went so far as to provide an official bootloader mechanism and Windows drivers bundled into an install package that makes running Windows on their hardware very simple. For that matter, much of the software they produce is provided either for free of for sale for the Windows platform.
They blatantly lie in their ads...
Great assertion, now provide some support or it is empty rhetoric.
Well, Apple has one potential monopoly I know of and thus only one way they can be using anti-competative methods. If you feel Apple is wielding monopoly influence on the music player market via their iPods, what evidence do you have to support that belief?
That is the market neighbor. It is very price sensitive. Apple still manages to be at the top of the list for hardware reliability according to spot checking by consumer reports and other independent companies. If you want more reliable and hence more expensive machines than their professional line, then I'm afraid you're in too small of a market for them to enter just now. Perhaps you should try a high-end Sun workstation.
Stop acting like Apple's the best just because they say so. If they're so great you can probably come up with something better than "experience vendor".
If you had bothered to read the rest of the post, you might know the previous poster was simply using the term "experience vendor" to describe a company that sells a bundled hardware and software package, subject to certain market constraints as far as third-party partnerships and interoperability are concerned.
In other words, they are good at creating highly marketable, hypable products, but not that good at creating usable products with reasonable prices.
Wow, what a leap of deduction - the computer equivilent of "Therefore, a witch!"
Can you think of no other products that were marketable but also functional?
It is possible to have a product with good design that then also has good marketing. You're just confused because most companies start on the marketing side.
I wouldn't quite your day job to open that detective agnecy just yet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What I am saying is that it has become clear to me that the ads are not back firing, and in fact, are reaching the target audience. All three of these women expressed a desire to buy a Mac for their next computer, when their current one finally breaks. This actually was surprising to me, because I assumed the ads probably were back firing because of what I had read on Slashdot.
This was pretty obvious to me because the ads are actually not mean spirited at all, unless the viewer is reading all kinds of things into the ads that simply are not there.
Think of the experience these women probably have, PC's at home that they have to get viruses and spyware cleaned off of, mysterious things that the computer tells them they do not really understand when they just want to hook up a printer. What about these ads would be untruthful to them? To someone who knows how to keep a PC clean by using firefox and firewals and so on and so forth the Apple ads appear untrue because that user has no spyware. But again, these women and most other consumers do see the spyware, and virues, and things that these ads talk about - so why would they have reason to doubt the pro Mac arguments the ads offer when the statements made about the PC are 100% true to them?
It's also pretty obvious the ads are working because Apple keeps making them and also paying a fair amount for good timeslots (like the emmys for the msot recent ones). An ad campain that was going south would have been pulled by now if it was not seeing some results.
Slashdot is a really bad filter to try and descern how Apple products are perceived, just look at the iPod when it came out. You can almost delcare Slashdot a comically bad judge of Apple products to the extent the direction of groupthink here is probably always the opposite of what the general market thinks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If I can't even view the quicktime movie format?
See, life really would be easier if you had a Mac. Kind of prooves the whole point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"What is a great way to promote the new Apple product to geeks? I know, we will have a story posted on Slashdot featuring the new ads, the geeks love Slashdot! And it will have real 'street-cred' as it will be coming from Slashdot so they will think it is from other geeks. Perfect."
It isn't a question if Apple is doing paid advertizing on Slashdot - They most certainly are. The question is:
1. Will Slashdotters fall for it?
2. Is someone at Slashdot really getting paid? Or are they getting a free ipod or something totally lame like that. If Commander Taco isn't getting at least $30,000 for this "article", then I lose all respect! It is one thing to sell out, it is another thing to sell out like a total buster!
I would like to see a commercial where the PC guy plays a video game and the Mac guy gets all confused at what he's doing.
I am not trying to defend Windows (OSX is the better OS), but to be fair, if Microsoft offered anything like the iLife suite for Windows, they would be sued for uncompetitive buisness practices. If is is "uncompetitive" for Microsoft to offer a media player and a browser already installed with the OS, it is most certainly "uncompetitive" to offer software that does photo editing, video editing, music editing, DVD authoring, and web editing and blogging software all comparable to actual commercial software.
Microsoft can't offer any useful software with the OS, because of legal restrictions. If our selfless government and brave law enforcement officers weren't protecting us from the villianous offense of offering free audio editing software, I am sure that Microsoft would be offering a competing software package.
An excellent clarification. There are few topics that show the polarization of the crowd as well as this one.
I think the original poster's use of the term "experience vendor" is a good one, and it bears some serious consideration. It is the ultimate in branding. They have established, to a great degree, a set of expectations and assumptions around their product. That is the experience they pitch to potential customers.
We've all seen this in different sectors. When you hear the term "used car salesman," what comes to mind? I've run into may folks in used car sales who go out of their way to sell a "car-buying experience" so they can differentiate themselves in the market. These are the establishments (heck, even cropping up in new car sales) that offer "no-pressure" sales floors, no-haggle pricing, free oil changes for a year, premium coffee in the lobby, even a sales force that will drive the vehicles to your home so you can test drive them in your own neighborhood. It's the same transition mom-and-pop stores must make when giants like Wal-Mart move in. They must focus on "value-added" services to draw in customers, especially since they cannot compete on price alone.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Mac is more than software, it is also a life-style choice and fashion statement.
I think one of the things that scares away some geeks from the mac, is the fact that so many people love the mac for reasons that has nothing to do with the software or hardware. People buy a mac for the same reason they buy a Mini Cooper and Dansk furniture... they think it makes them "funky" and "different". Where as people who don't see consumer items as a source of social identity have a hard time dealing with the whole mac image. I don't want to be making a statement of my consumer ethos by purchasing a mac, I just want a good computer!
"Well, I can do all of those things as well, and also fun stuff like playing all of the latest games."
"Yeh, Microsoft makes great game machines. My owner's got an XBox, but he seems to like his Playstation better."
If your main reason for buying a computer is playing games, the gap between computer and console is narrower every year. Why not save the money and just get one?
I see it as a trade off. Simplicity comes at the cost of options. A great example is Sony's camcorders. They have this "Easy" button. With it off, you have a relatively large selection (complicated for some) in the menu. The common person may find this confusing and not use any of it. When you press the "Easy" button, it basically locks out and automatically controls everything in that menu except for the very basic of functions. Yes, mac may be easy to use for the general public, but when it comes to some that NEEDS to do something that is not relatively basic. The ease of use can go right out the door. My personal opinion, i like windows (also linux) because if something is not doing what i want it too, i can change it. It can be something as simple as making the desktop experience more graphical (or less graphical). I like the choices. Also to repeat from your blip, for a fraction of the cost. (bootcamp isn't a solution to OSX's lack of software choices. It's joining the other side while getting charged WAY to much)
posting ads makes you cry? hell man, you must cry a hell of a lot, then..
- are you saying you have chosen to skip on a couple of security updates?
Security updates?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Would you mind if I asked you for a single example of Windows allowing you to change something that you want to, whereas you cannot for mac?
I think you can go further: Slashdot is a horribly bad predictor of the success of technology meant for the average computer user, because no one who posts here is an average computer user, me included. When I think of average computer users I think of my brother, who asked me if I would help him fix his Powerbook. He had dropped the thing from a good height more than once and had so bent the case that he couldn't plug in the power cord. His idea of 'fixing' the thing was to take to computer completely apart, take a hammer and bang the case back into shape. I tried to explain to him that taking apart a laptop is not a small thing and that banging the case back into shape was no easy thing. I told him to take the thing to Tekserve and have them do it, because I wasn't going to take on the responsibility of possibly ruining someone else's computer.
The difference, I think, is that the average computer user thinks of the machine as a monolithic thing: it's a magic electronic box. When something goes wrong with the machine, it's universal. It's not that the USB has fried, or that a software update has choked, but that the whole magic box is now sick. This explains a couple of things. It is why people throw out perfectly good computers after two or three years rather than upgrade; if you think of the computer like a microwave (the principle of which most people don't understand) then there's no way you'd ever think of upgrading one. It explains why Slashdot was dead wrong on the success of the iPod; Apple created the mp3 player as magic electronic box, something your average user could relate to. Attach to computer, manage in iTunes, music appears on iPod. It's monolithic and, for someone who thinks of technology that way, simple.
And it explains the success of Apple's ads, and the displeasure they cause here. Apple is selling the computer as magic monolithic box and saying, essentially, our magic box is easier to use than someone else's. Most on Slashdot know that computers aren't magic boxes. Many here take great pride in how deep that knowledge runs, and take great joy in delving deep into the guts of their machines and OSes. But your average computer user doesn't want to, and doesn't care. That is the target audience for these ads, and for devices like the iPod. Beyond that, your average computer user wants a magic electronic box, something which functions more as an information appliance than anything else.
Most Slashdot readers don't want a magic box. But Slashdot users are the minority.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
I'm sure everyone noticed this, but I find it stupid that the PC is totally misrepresented. Mac cannot run most of the programs which most people are used to using, and alot of games are not playable on Mac. Perhaps Apple would be better off showing how Macs are ACTUALLY better than PC's.
Actually, it points out what people already know: Corporations and businesses use Windows PCs. Windows for many is Word and Excel. And almost everyone who has used a Windows PC at work has hated it at some point
It would be the same for any OS, wouldn't it? If they used a mac in corporations they would be most likelly to work and not to have a good time. Even if someone releases a "fun os" I'll probably hate it that tries to make my work 'funnier' by popping out rainbows on me while I work.
Programs with odd names performing illegal operations and offering them the change to debug, only to do nothing useful. And so on.
I dislike FUD, even if it is against windows, it would be odd that those misterious programs from nowhere appear while they are at work, and if they are at home well the user was most likelly looking for it to happen. It is not like Mac has an anti odd name policy or if it doesn't have exception handling in their programs.
The Mac is being shown in the light of being a computer for your home life, far away from spreadsheets and Active Directory, where your photos, home movies, and music play a much stronger role, and showing ease-of-use for doing nice things with that media.
All right, 2 things that Macs can't do: Play most of the newest games and Play movies in the latest formats without downloading a media player which is what you would call "evil configuration". How would they be more of a home life computer than a PC? I am using a PC for my home life computer and do not have any complaint yet ,and unlike what you seem to think windows is in no way forcing me to use Spreadsheets
Remember that the majority of new Windows PC owners buy an OEM machine and can barely plug in all the color-coded cables. They turn it on and the Windows setup wizard starts as you said. Fine. Now your OEM machine is detecting the 3-in-one inkjet-scanner-fax printer that came bundled free with the computer. Windows is now pompting them to install three items it has detected. Each one throwing up the New hardware wizard. Not to mention the computer's system image was from 4 months ago, so they need to download 55MB of patches on their dial-up connection in order to be "safe".
You see, the majority of new comp owners just pay someone to configure their stuff, and if more people used macs the dumb majority would also have problems with them and have someone paid to do that stuff.
I am happy with my PC Kubuntu - windows XP combo, it is really fast, works as an entertainment center, can do anything from playing the latest games to doing my homework, developing php web sites or c++ programs pretty well. In fact this comp is a home life computer and is very effective at that, so I have a name for this kind advertising: FUD. I 'd like to see advertisements that actually tell me why should I buy a computer instead of just trying to make me believe my PC is not fun enough for me.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I pretty much hate all advertisements based on the fact that they are almost always lies and they use every phallacy in the book to knowingly trick people. TiVo is my friend.
I'm ok with somebody highlighting positive qualities of their product while downplaying negative ones. It's just a fact that all products have good and bad points and you're lucky if your good points vastly outwieght the bad ones and you've got some hard marketing to do if you're faced with the opposite scenario.
My pet peeves is that advertisers don't highlight and downplay. They actually use logical fallacies to trick people into believing that a negative doesn't exist, is actually a positive or that all products share a worse negative. And they do this knowingly or negligently.
Take the "Get a Mac" commercials. First off. Why is one of the characters dressed drastically different from the other??? One is dressed in stereotypical corporate fashion while the other in stereotypical hip, loose fashion. This has nothing to do with the capabilities of the products compared. But it was clearly an intentional selection. Why?... In order to have the consumer identify the products as having all the negatives we typically associate with corporate america and the positives of youth and freedom in a favorable fashion for Macs. But I know lots of corporate people who use and love Macs for business purposes and I know lots of artists who use PC platforms for creative work. Why not swap age and wardrobe on the two actors and play the exact same commercial?? shouldn't make a difference should it?
second: Why is the Mac proponent sharp and pithy while the PC champion is rather dull witted? Again, they are trying to send the message "you'll be stupid if you buy a PC" which has absolutely nothing to do with the actual merits of the product. Yes. People come in a variety of flavors including stupid and smart. I've seen plenty of stupid people using Macs and a lot of smart people using PC platforms. Again, why not switch the intelligence/insight capabilities of the two characters?
Third: Everybody seems to be all gung-ho about the humor of these ads. Does making a funny ad make the product any better? No. But they rely on this to get you to buy a product. Hey I like commercials with hot, semi-naked women in them too, but that doesn't make the product better; neither does a funny ad.
fourth: They rely on common ignorance in order to propogate lies. Macs can do spreadsheets just fine and PCs can do graphics just as well. I have yet to see anything done on a Mac that I can't do on a Windows machine. Nothing. In fact you can usually get whatever software package you want for either platform. For software not made for both there is generally a suitably similar alternative. And for every instance where you can say: "But not this package/application!!" I can find you an example for the other platform. Basically, I can do graphics, spreadsheets and application development on both platforms equally well. But the commercials specifically imply that you cannot. relying on the ignorance of the consumer to agree. And I hate people who rely on a person's ignorance in order to manipulate them into a desired behavior. This is no different than con-artists.
So, no. I don't really find these commercials particularly insightful, helpful, ethical or even funny. But that is my opinion of almost all advertising and marketing
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
I don't want to be making a statement of my consumer ethos by purchasing a mac, I just want a good computer!
Frankly, I think you're a pretty sad specimen. On the one hand, you've bought the It's not a computer...It's a lifestyle (R) marketing message lock, stock, and barrel. On the other, you're so afraid of it that you have to demean it.
It is just a computer. It's not a threat to your individuality or your sexual orientation or your no-bullshit-kinda-guy image.
And or the record, as an Apple customer, I think these commercials are pretty lame. Almost as lame as the guy who submitted them to Slashdot.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
The real laugh was that you had to install quicktime to view the ads from Apple's website.
And the problem with this is what, precisely?
Are you concerned that Apple will install a backdoor in your system through Quicktime, or that having Quicktime installed will otherwise reduce the security, reliability, or performance of your system?
I assume that you have some other streaming media program you prefer.
Would that be Windows Media, by any chance? If so, Windows Media comes with the system backdoor pre-installed by Microsoft, and since it uses the HTML control to render content using Windows Media Player or the WMP plugin is just as dangerous as using Internet Explorer or Outlook on Windows.
Which of course you, not being stupid, don't do... right?