A few months back, I commented that Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads were amusing but it still strikes me as odd that a company with a brand as strong as Apple’s would drop to what is effectively bragging. Anyway, despite the rumours of Mac guy Justin Long being replaced (which he appears to deny on his website), new ads are running and they are still amusing… even if they do sometimes sail a little close to the wind (more on that in a moment).
The ads have grabbed the public attention so much that there are even spoof ads:
Even Microsoft seem to be getting in on the act, and although the original source of the Zune vs. iPod clip below is unclear, it was reported to have been shown at a Microsoft event (I can believe that):
Meanwhile, the United States’ campaign has been so successful that it is now being rolled out in other parts of the world – David Mitchell and Robert Webb have been brought in as PC guy and Mac guy for the UK ads and it seems to work well (my favourites so far are definitely “Restarting” and “Virus“).
I said that Apple are sailing close to the wind here and this is why… I have to restart my Mac far more often than my Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 PCs – so that’s one of the UK ads that’s a blatant lie then. I’ll accept that view is a little subjective, so let’s objectively consider the new “Security” ad in the US which pokes fun at Windows Vista’s user access control:
…and here’s a screen shot from my Mac, after I change the default behaviour which allows me to run as an administrator although admittedly not as root (and with the client firewall turned off):
I know the ads are largely about fun but isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
Great collection of clips, Mark. I’d not seen the spoofs before and they did make me laugh!
It seems to have become banal to declare to your computing peers that you run a better OS than them. When people such as yourself run a collection of the three OS’s it becomes easier to see that each has their own distinct flaws.
Glad you liked them Simon. I thought they were fun but as you’ll see writing the code to get them embedded in a standards-compliant manner with cross-browser support was not simple!
And in another example of a blatant lie in an Apple Mac vs. PC ad… “Computer Cart” makes a great play that Macs don’t get cryptic error messages. Tell me then Apple, WTF is “Feedbag Error 14” (a real iChat AV error) if it’s not cryptic?
I love my Mac, but why resort to lying about the competition in order to generate sales?