What Will “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” Ads Look Like When Web Browsers Rule The World?
In adversity there is opportunity (at least that’s what the motivational types always say), and it’s remarkable how much adversity Microsoft’s endured before getting serious about its advertising.
The Mac vs PC marketing wars have tilted heavily in the direction of the Mac – due in large part to the funny (and effective) “Hi, I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” campaign rolled out by Apple, which has become the Officially Designated Satirical Format for almost every would-be-viral videomaker on YouTube.
After a fairly stringy “I’m a PC” campaign, Microsoft – apparently finally realizing the danger – launches on the Mac by riffing on the high cost of Apple’s products, a move guaranteed to enrage Mac Fanboys everywhere:
True or not, it’s nice to see that both sides are ratcheting up their marketing campaigns, which should prove amusing (for those of us who can still tear themselves away from Twitter long enough to watch).
Which oddly begs the next question (OK, I did write it):
How are Mac, PC & Linux going to differentiate themselves in the cloud computing era – when so much of what we do flows through nearly identical browsers largely indifferent to the OS?
Firefox looks pretty much the same no matter which platform you’re using. Same for most of the social media clients we use (and that’s true for Linux too, save the ongoing lack of a great blog editor).
After all, “Hi, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC, and most of the time, you can’t tell us apart” doesn’t sound like the basis for a compelling ad campaign.
Will the playing field continue to tilt towards the Mac’s rich media/content creation goodness? Will Windows 7 rectify some of Vista’s worst shortcomings? Will the uber-affordable, high-performance Linux desktop distributions make any headway?
More importantly, what will the ad campaigns look like? What will the differentiators really look like? I’m dying to see.
And yes, I believe there’s ample opportunity for Linux to make marketing headway by leveraging its underdog status, and the utter lack of a financial model for marketing suggests the need for a fun, innovative social media campaign.
Frankly, that would be a fun campaign to write; when you’re on the bottom in terms of market share, you’ve got nothing to lose – which is when creatives should have the most fun.
Today’s Bonus Time Killers
As someone who bought a 128K Mac in 1985, switched to a PC in the 90s, and now use Linux, I’m clearly one of the true cranks of the desktop computing world, and feel compelled to include the Mac vs PC vs Linux version of Apple’s famous ad:
For Those Without Twitter Accounts to Distract You
We present fifteen Mac vs PC ads placed end to end:
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
I liked this windows ad better than the “I enjoy burgers, and I’m also a PC!” previous thing they did.
But for my part they could have cut away the: “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person”-comments. Made Windows seems bitter and sad. Would have worked just as well – and better – without.
As for Linux, it would have been fun if they elevated themselves above the “I’m a”-battle with something like: “Perhaps we’re not an image nor a statements. But for what it’s worth, we’re free.” Or: “Linux is not something you are, it’s something you use. For free.”
Dunno. Just a thought.
I think crafting a Linux campaign would be fun, though the community nature of open source projects could make it hard for truly zippy creative to come out of the process.