Microsoft Laptop Hunter Ads Sans Prices After Apple Complains: So What?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XOtCFNaNUg
Apple recently complained to Microsoft about its “Laptop Hunter” ad series where pseudo-everyday consumers go on a shopping quest to buy computers on a limited budget.
In what Microsoft Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner called “the greatest single phone call,” Apple lawyers rang up to lament the ads weren’t accurate — since the company shaved prices off Macs, some by as much as $300 hundred dollars, in June.
Microsoft agreed to edit the ads to reflect this.
So what changed in the ad campaign? Not much.
The first edited ad is “Lauren and Sue,” where a mom-and-daughter team are in the market for a computer for under $1,700.
Originally, the ad showed law student Lauren declaring:
“This Mac is $2,000, and that’s before adding anything.”
“Why would you pay twice the price?” asks Lauren’s mom. “I wouldn’t,” says Lauren, who heads to the checkout with a $972 Dell laptop.
In the updated version, the specific price is edited out but Lauren does a drive-by of the Macs, dismissing the MacBook Pro (“this one only has a 250GB hard drive”) before sentencing: “It seems like you’re paying a lot for the brand.”
Microsoft’s Turner told journalists that his company plans to “keep running them and running them and running” the Laptop Hunter ads — and it’s easy to see why. They don’t need specific prices to use the expensive-but-not-really-worth-it Mac argument.
Via Ad Age
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on 
