New Microsoft anti-Apple ad
p2pnet news view | Advertising:- Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates are out as Microsoft takes on Apple in a full frontal assault.
But the voice you hear in the background chanting ‘Thank you, THANK you!’ feverishly is Steve Jobs as Microsoft, now under the leadership of Steve Ballmer, accords priceless free publicity to Apple in an attempted rip-off of the hated-and-loved Apple advertisements.
Microsoft originally launched a video starring Seinfeld, Gates, a shoe store and Gates adjusting his pants.
Yes.
Somehow, the video didn’t, ‘ow you say, gel and now, “Microsoft employee Sean Siler stands against a white background and channels the frustrated ‘PC’ character from Apple’s ‘Get a Mac’ campaign, which has been bashing Microsoft and its Windows Vista operating system since 2006,” says the caption to the Seattle Times pic on the right.
“Hello. I’m a PC. And I’ve been made into a stereotype,” Siler says with a wave, according to the story, which goes on »»»
Mind-body medicine expert Deepak Chopra intones, “I am a PC and I am a human being. Not a human doing. Not a human thinking. A human being.”
Gotta be more meaningful than Bill Gates adjusting his pants. Right? Right?
“The strategy to use the Apple attack as the basis for a counterstrike is typical for the agency behind the campaign, Crispin Porter & Bogusky,” says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“Crispin Porter, part of MDC Partners, relishes efforts to transform perceived negatives into positives.”
They may have done just that.
However, the positives may all be going to Apple, which didn’t pay a dime.
Seattle Times - Microsoft ads, phase 2: “I’m a PC” takes on Apple, September 19, 2008
Seattle Post-Intelligencer - Microsoft uses Apple attack ads in its own counterstrike, September 19, 2008
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September 19th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Two years too late! Apple has been showing their ads for about two years, and Microsoft responds now? I would have praised Microsoft’s new ad two years ago, but to counter an ad campaign that’s already two years old just makes Microsoft look slow and behind the times.
September 19th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
As much as I dislike Micro$oft…
Want an ad that will actually work and catch people’s attention? Show the Windows guy surrounded by piles of software boxes including tons of games, with more being continuously delivered as the ad goes on. So much software that he can’t even keep up with it. Meanwhile the Mac guy has one or two little piles. Every time the delivery guy comes on the screen, Mac gets all excited and then depressed as the guy walks right by the Mac to deliver all the software to Windows. Finally at the end of the ad, Mac gets one single piece of new software. Windows looks over and comments “That’s a great one, I had that last year.”
(You’ll probably notice that I didn’t call the Windows guy “PC”. That’s because PC stands for “Personal Computer”, which means ANY computer. Despite current usage, “PC” is not a name owned by Micro$soft or any other Intel/Windows based company.)
September 19th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
^^ Good one, Rekrul. And it’d probably work.
But it wouldn’t be used.
It didn’t take (at a minimum) a creative director, graphic artist, story board artist, copyrighter (billable) and seven brainstorming sessions over lunch (billable) to come up with nine ‘concepts’ (billable), three focus groups (billable), four rough takes (billable), the final screening (billable), the final shoot (billable), and 13 high level executive media briefing lunches (billable) and then the final media lunch where it’s presented, with freebies, to low level media hacks (billable).
I’m just making it up, but it’d be something along those lines — if not worse.
Final cost? $2.9 milllion.
Cheers!
September 20th, 2008 at 1:51 am
hahaha at the last 2 posts
i like this new ad
i found the second in the gates and seinfeild series QUITE funny, but this one is really good.
September 20th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Beside the mac is just a PC with basically the same hardware as any Widow machine. Only the Bios differ.
This is so true that you can hack OS X to run on a PC while the MAC can run Windows just fine.
As far as hardware is concern I am not dying for the Apple desktop systems but I must say that the laptops are little marvels of design and quality matched only by Lenovo right now. Also the OSX socket (just like the Linux sockets) is vastly superior to the window soxket and Safari is way better than IE. Microsoft are planning to drop IE.
September 21st, 2008 at 1:15 am
ms is dropping ie?! after 8 or what?
10 bucks says they buy out opera.
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 am
I’d say its more of a “pro PC” ad than an “anti apple” ad. Apple has been making the negative ads all along (and alone as well). I’ve never seen any corporation ridicule another corporation like this in publicity before. Good for apple? Not so sure.