Apple VS. Microsoft - the battle of the ads!
“The Get a Mac campaign is a current (2006–present) television advertising campaign created for Apple Inc. by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the company’s advertising agency. Shown in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Japan, the ads in the campaign have become easily recognizable because each ad follows a standard simple template: against a minimalist all-white background, a man dressed in casual clothes introduces himself as a Mac running Mac OS X (“Hello, I’m a Mac.”), while a man in a more formal suit-and-tie combination introduces himself as a non-Macintosh personal computer running Microsoft Windows (“And I’m a PC.”). The two then act out a brief vignette in which the capabilities and attributes of Mac and PC are compared, with PC—characterized as formal, stuffy and overly concerned with work—often being frustrated by the more laid-back Mac’s abilities. Some recent ads have shifted focus away from comparing features of the computer systems to a more general comparison. The most recent ones, however, are mainly concerning Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista.
The original American ads star actor Justin Long as the Mac and author and humorist John Hodgman as the non-Mac PC, and are directed by Phil Morrison.” Source: Wikipedia
What the controversial advertising campaign does teach us is that traditional advertising (television spots) mixed with Web 2.x (i.e. twitter), namely word-of-blog / type, creates a unique forum for bi-directional communication and dialogue. Check out these creative, yet clashing video advertisements courtesy YouTube:
“Hi, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” Full TV Advertisements (15 total combined)
“I’m a PC” Full TV Advertisement
Laptop Hunters $2000 – Sheila gets an HP HDX – Full TV Advertisement
So who wins – Mac or PC? Or is it really, choosing your poison???
