Apple has decided to directly answer Microsoft's advertising provocation in Laptop Hunters series. The Mac producer ridicules PC's faults in the latest ads of Get a Mac campaign using a similar marketing technique to Microsoft. A question arises why Apple launches into this advertising clash putting its meticulously built marketing strategy at stake.
Apple has just released four new TV spots and one of them entitled "Elimination" is in the limelight today. In this spot John Hodgman (PC) invites a couple of his friends to help a shopper named Megan choose a computer. Megan is looking for a computer without viruses, crashes and headaches. This eliminates all the PCs and she's left with the Mac.
Apple might have not reached out from its marketing creation bounders set by Get a Mac series but it is just obvious the Mac producer counterattacks the latest Laptop Hunters ads by Microsoft. Such direct engagement in advertising answers will never have positive outcomes to the brand. Average consumers usually immediately lose track of "what, who, whom and why" and they simply lose interest in it, while both brands engaged in direct advertising clash have their market image harmed.
Apple has been consequently building its marketing message based on a strategic assumption that "Macs are cool and PCs are uncool". Paradoxically, Microsoft legitimized this assumption with its latest anti-Mac ads because it did not ridicule possible faults of Macs but their price based on the uniqueness of Apple logo. An average consumer who has been watching Laptop Hunters ads and who has not been biased against any of the brands must have been made certain that Macs are truly unique - although they charge much for it but in return, they offer some added value that PCs lack.
Apple seems to be wavering from its neatly trodden path that so far has brought tangible effects in building brand awareness. It is definitely thanks to Get a Mac series that Apple successfully promoted the features of Mac brand: reliability, simplicity in use and trouble-freeness. By not answering Microsoft, Apple would prove it is still after the features. Latest Get a Mac advertising spots boil down to answering a question whether Apple hit Windows or not, forgetting about the main brand message - what it really has to offer consumer in opposition to PC.
There were some worrying signals that Apple got involved in Microsoft's play (and it is actually what Microsoft was after as MS Brand Manager David Webster put it) when Apple's spokesperson Billy Evans commented on Redmond's advertising offensive in "BusinessWeek". Apple has never commented its competitors' advertising moves before. Now Apple puts an important argument into Microsoft's hands with the Elimination spot. It is a kind of an invitation to another offensive. This is also the legitimisation of Microsoft's successfulness.
It is quite puzzling whether Steve Jobs accepted this commercial or not. Judging from all available biographical sources, Steve Jobs has always had a last word about commercials. It is generally known he likes to have a decisive stand about strategic parts of advertising spots and often makes changes in the very last moment before their airing (such a CEO is nightmare to marketing people). Mr Jobs is presently out on medical leave and as he informed last January, he takes part only in strategic projects. The question is whether the last four Get a Mac spots were on a list of such projects.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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6 Responses to "What for, Apple?"mmm, what about non-Windows based PCs?
This last set of ads tell the same story that's been told in previous last 4 years of ads, and with the same humor and attitude. Macs have good customer support; don't have malware or viruses, are easy to use (including iLife); and are causing many people to switch from PC.
Don't see how Apple has wavered or put its "marketing strategy at stake."
@anonymous2 - "Latest Get a Mac advertising spots boil down to answering a question whether Apple hit Windows or not, forgetting about the main brand message - what it really has to offer consumer in opposition to PC"
The new MAC ads continue the same barbed humorous format that the old ads had. In addition, they answer the charges of the Evil Empire that Mac's are only for the "rich cool" computer users by stating some of the reasons the MAC is a better buy for the user than the cheap trash w/ Windoze promoted by MSFT.
Apple's sales of computers have held up far better than MSFT's in the current downturn. In fact if you count the iPhone (a held held computer that makes phone calls) & the iPod Touch (a hand held compter that doesn't make phone calls) as some tech pundits do, AAPL's total computer sales have RISEN.
Of course, if you count MSFT's sales on the Zune you---err---well at least you don't run out of fingers & toes in your count.
Ayuh
Wow, I like how the Apple is the cool white boy and the PCs are a combination of old/older men who are wearing glasses, bald or balding, and/or non-white.
I will be interested in seeing how women fit into Apple's concept of the master race.
PCs suck...
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