‘I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person’ – New Microsoft Ad

PaulSpoerry | March 27, 2009

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Microsoft has notoriously horrible ads. Apple spanks the crap out of them in creative ad campaigns. I have a ton of friends jumping on the Apple bandwagon. After looking at (and drooling over) their new gorgeous hardware I ask two things:

How much was it?
Are you running XP on it?l

The “How much” question usually leaves my mouth hanging open. Ya… the OS looks pretty and the hardware is… well you can’t get more stylish hardware than Apple’s. Many of my friends also love to show off how they do this key-combo and then boom you see Windows XP running side-by-side with OSX. While that’s cool, I always question “if OSX is so good why do you even need Windows”. I’ve yet to get a good response to that. I also always question “what is it about OSX that’s so much better than Windows?” and the response… 99% of the time is “it just works.” To me, that’s a completely bogus statement. I have the 64bit version of Windows Vista on my machine and “it just works” all the time too; never crashing and rarely requiring a reboot.

When I purchased my current desktop I did consider taking the plunge into the Apple waters. I figured even if I didn’t turn into a Mac diehard I could always run XP side-by-side. Then I started comparing price/performance. Apple products just cost so much more for less hardware; I went with a non-Apple product.

So the new ad is good… and sums up my feelings. The 60-second ad is all about “Lauren,” who wants to buy a new, 17-inch-screen laptop for under $1,000. According to a report by the Associated Press, Microsoft hired Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the ad agency behind the campaign pairing Bill Gates with Jerry Seinfeld, to recruit “unwitting subjects by posing as a market research firm studying laptop purchasing decisions.” Participants found on Craigslist were given between $700 to $2,000 to buy a computer fitting certain criteria, and were told they could keep the computer they selected.

Lauren isn’t a die-hard Windows fan. She just wants a new laptop and is trying to decide over an Apple or Windows based notebook. But she can only fine one Apple notebook, a measly 13-inch Macbook, that fits in her price range and joking tells the camera, “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.”

Check out the ad:

To be fair to the die hard folks, or those who know squat about buying a new computer… they don’t go into hardware specs. For one, they only have 60 seconds. Also… these ads aren’t targeting the uber geek. They’re targeting people like my mom and my sister… the average joe… who knows little about hardware specs, GPU’s, etc.

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