Microsoft’s Ads Are Hurting Apple: Survey

Leander Kahney ()

microsoft_v_apple_brandindex

Chart: Silicon Alley Insider.

UPDATED: YouGov sent a little more info about the survey’s other metrics — posted after the jump. Basically, Apple still leads on quality and reputation, but MS has caught on value, satisfaction and willingness to recommend.

Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” ad campaign is hurting Apple, according to a new consmer survey by YouGov BrandIndex.

Redmond’s new ads portray consumers rejecting Apple’s laptops as too expensive. Though clearly a defensive reaction to Apple’s successful “Get a Mac” ads, they are nonetheless reinforcing the stereotype of the “Apple tax,” says YouGov.

“With the Laptop Hunters campaign, Microsoft is making an impact on the perceived value score in the mind of consumers, particularly young consumers,”  Ted Marzilli, global managing director of BrandIndex, said on Tuesday afternoon when I phoned him up.

YouGov is an international market research firm based out of London. Its BrandIndex survey queried about 5,000 people online from a pool of about 1.5 million, Marzilli said. It claims to be representative of the U.S. adult population.

Its latest survey shows a clear uptick in Microsoft’s “value,” and a clear downtick in Apple’s. The change coincides with Microsoft’s high-profile campaign.

Marzilli said the ads are clearly hurting Apple’s “value,” which he defined as a measure of “what you get for your money, not expense.” In other words, consumers think they will get more for their money if they buy a non-Apple machine, Marzilli said.

Marzilli said the movement was not huge, but was “statistically significant.”

However, it should be noted that Apple wasn’t hurt in other metrics measured by the survey — such as satisfaction, quality and reputation.

“If you look at some of the other metrics, Apple typically fares better than Microsoft,” Marzilli said. (Unfortunately, Marzilli didn’t have the data to hand. He promised to send me an email, and I’ll update this post when I receive it).

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Alos, Marzilli said it’s unclear if changing consumer perceptions will continue over the next few months or have any impact on sales,

“It’s too early to tell,” he said.

UPDATE. As promised, Ted Marzilli sent info about the other metrics:

Apple has and still leads on: Quality (although MS has closed the gap) and Reputation.
MS has recently overtaken Apple on: Satisfaction and Value
MS has recently caught up to (i.e., virtually tied) on: General Impression, Willingness to Recommend

Via Silicon Alley Insider.

15 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Advertising, Apple, Macintosh, News, Top stories |

  • http://mandaj.com manda.j

    Fine by me – less people using Apple means less attention and less need for people to try and develop viruses and whatnot towards them. People are cheap, and you get what you pay for.

  • http://www.cypher-sec.org thecolor

    blahhh, Apple hurts itself by loosely claiming things like “it doesn’t have virus problems, performs better at this or that, etc. etc.”

    I love all 3 of my Macs and they do great things, BUT being a multi OS user (OSX, several flavors of *nix, Win, etc.) every machine/OS does something different (good or bad).

    So, M$ofts ads just tell the consumer to research what will suit them best and in this economy and low cost wins. no?

  • The Idiot

    There are “I want what’s cheapest” people, and there are “I want what’s best” people.

    Always will be, and so goes the Apple / PC divide.

  • Gil

    what’s the big deal anyway?? Microsoft still owns a big part of Apple right????

  • Michael

    just to watch the add on microsoft’s website, I have to install a Microsoft product, Silverlight. This is why I want nothing to do with them. I like my simple mac life.

  • http://aaron.cult-branding.com Aaron Shields

    This data is really limited. And there’s no real proof that the decrease in value is a result of the Microsoft campaign, it’s only suggested by it.

    But more importantly, most have always recognized Apple as more expensive. Price is a bad way to compete, and isn’t going to effect Apple in the long run. Apple does technically offer less features for the price, but Apple sells itself on user interface.

    After I saw these commercials I imagined a followup where the people who purchased the PCs are cursing at them for crashing and loading slowly.

  • Steve

    I don’t believe this for a minute and neither should anyone who has the slightest knowledge of statistics. I find it pretty silly this guy says he didn’t have the data on hand. Right. Also who is paying for this? Microsoft is famous for paying for such things. Finally I think the ads are preaching to the choir and say nothing new and I really doubt many people are influenced by these ads.

  • Johannes

    Looks random to me. Explain the dip in February for example (much lower than today). Also a lot of variation, doesn’t seem reliable to me at all.
    Looks like the correlation only exists in the ‘researchers’ mind.

  • http://www.pausita.com.ar cristian

    why apple does not directly compare the price of OSX vs Vista ?

  • UNCLE BERNIE

    Of course this campaign makes sense. teenagers or their parents naturally want cheap, disposable machines, and windows crap fills the bill. I have owned many dell/hp/gateway POS and will never own another one and mock those that do. Nothing but crap. The netbooks are even worse.

    “IF IT RUNS WINDOWS, IT SUCKS” might be a new ad.

  • thanx_al

    Fine, let them buy their cheap HPs and Dells. Much like me they will one day wake up to the fact that their bloated OS is actually causing them more headaches than it is worth. Then, like me, they’ll switch.

    I actually had an HP rep tell me that the reason my TWO Pavillon tx1000s died is because WInders uses the processor so intensively that it “overheats” the machine (processor) which then gets so hot that it burns out the wireless. Well wouldn’t you have thought of that when designing your cheap crap?

    I still ask my self everyday “why didn’t I switch before”?

  • webbs

    Hey UNCLE BERNIE, my mac runs windows as well as OSX and it doesn’t suck

  • Rick

    I’m in the survey research business, and this statement “queried about 5,000 people online from a pool of about 1.5 million, Marzilli said. It claims to be representative of the U.S. adult population”makes me extremely suspicious of the quality and reliability of the survey.

    Only 5,000 people completed the survey. That’s a response rate of .33 percent, absolutely dreadful and bad even for an online survey, which typically have awful response rates.

    Online surveys are notoriously unreliable and with a response rate that low, not even worth talking about, since the survey results are total trash. Representative of the US population? Not a chance.

  • Jim D

    Give people not quite enough money to buy a MacBook, then crow about how they didn’t buy … a MacBook! Yeah, I’m convinced.

    Reminds me of junk mail I got a few years back from MicroSloth, featuring the stories of three young people who switched from the Mac to a Windoze machine. Naturally, I think “Who the hell would ever do such a stupid thing?” so I read the finest of the fine print. Sure enough: not real people, not real stories. I’ve always wondered how long the scoured the earth for three real live examples, before they gave up and decided to fake it.

  • http://www.mr2.org.nz John

    Value:
    Buying a mini desktop, Dell Studio Hybrid Desktop – no screen but does include dell plastic wireless keyboard and mouse. CPU 2.2GHz Intel Core2 Duo, 800MHz bus, 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA HDD, 8xDVD+/-RW, Intel GMA3100 video.
    3xUSB2 ports rear, 2 in front, 1 1394 firewire 400 mini port, 3mm audio in and out rear, headphone jack in front, S/P DIF, GB Ethernet, DVI and HDMI. Customised to add dell wireless N card and Vista Premium to closer match spec of OS X for all features – disk encryption, media centre, ability to join a domain or other directory etc.
    NZ$1784.25 including tax and shipping

    Apple Mac Mini 2009
    2GHz but 1GHz frontside bus, 2GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM, Apple wireless KB and mouse, (to match what is shipped with the Dell), 320GB SATA HDD, 8xDVD Superdrive, bluetooth, NVidia Geforce 9400M video, GB ethernet, Airport 802.1n wifi, 5 USB2 ports on the rear, 1 Firewire800, Mini displayport, mini DVI, Combined optical digital audio in an our ports. iLife09
    NZ$2076.01

    So yes, the mini does come out $291 more expensive with a slightly slower CPU, but you do get faster frontside bus and RAM, a much better keyboard/mouse (IMHO), larger HDD, faster video card, bluetooth, the iLife09 suite, a robust aluminium case, and smaller footprint.
    Now adding only $40 more you can also get a pretty cool remote control (a pity this is now optional, not included) and faster firewire.
    And one extra, better resale value. I bought my mini 6 months old, and it still cost me NZ$950. The Dell will almost be worthless in 6 months, and if it breaks, I’m pretty sure Dell won’t have the parts for it as it will have been completely replaced in a year with something else.

    So it comes down to is the Apple $300 better value – Running Vista compared to OS X, yes. The slower CPU is not so relevant because of the other components being faster, and OS X just actually needing less resource than Vista, but this will change with Win7 as my mini just flies with Win7 release candidate. It is almost as fast as XP.

    To me, $300 is a fair price to not have to put up with MS products. As a Network engineer, actually having a supported UNIX platform is very useful. So I plan to upgrade to a new Mini this year. I think it is better value.