New Mac-Bashing Microsoft Ad Has “Real” People Get Excited About Blu-Ray
11:12 pm, April 9th, 2009, Pete Mortensen
Watching Microsoft try to strike back at Apple with the Laptop Hunters series of commercials is almost hilariously tragic. Inevitably, the “ordinary people” (actors) who star in the spots go in “open-minded”, which means they’re looking for a very cheap laptop with a huge screen, which is a category Apple obviously doesn’t offer. The latest entry, with “Lisa” and “Jackson,” finds the hunters dismissing Macs as “cute” while making ultimate gasface, before getting really excited about a Sony VAIO with a 16.4″ screen and a Blu-Ray drive. Excuse me, “Blu-RAYYYY!” Because, as we all know, there is nothing more important than being able to watch a movie at 1080p on a plane. That’s just a fact.
Honestly, it’s a relatively smart ad campaign, but you can practically envision the ad agency pitch meeting, in which the research department notes that Apple’s cheapest 17″ laptop is almost $3,000, while Dell, HP and the rest make really cheap 17″ laptops — critical vulnerability. Here’s the thing. Very, very few people like 17″ laptops. They’re huge, heavy, and really hard to fit onto a cafe table at a coffee shop. Far more people are happier with something small, light, and thin — which is why Netbooks are all the rage right now. Not to give Microsoft free advice or anything — or to do Crispin, Porter and Bogusky’s job for them — but this would be a way more effective ad campaign if they had their shoppers walk out with four Eee PC 904HAs and had some change left over. All this ad campaign is showing is that if you want to get a big, heavy laptop with lots of stickers from Intel and Nvidia plastered on the wrist rest, you want a PC.
Meanwhile, Netbooks are actually a market phenomenon, and they offer something that Apple hasn’t delivered yet. But why play up innovation when you can play up cheapness? I suppose that’s the core difference between Apple and MS, after all these years. Apple always makes a big deal out of quality and design. Microsoft tries to hook you with a killer low price.
(Also, in writing about Microsoft’s “comeback campaign,” BusinessWeek noted that this ad shows the family choosing a PC because it has Blu-Ray, “on which many games are printed.” Um… for PS3, maybe. Has anyone ever released a PC game on Blu-Ray as an option, let alone as an exclusive?)
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Advertising, Apple | Comment on this article
If you enjoyed this article:
Subscribe via RSS or email, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter
“…they’re looking for a very cheap laptop with a huge screen, which is a category Apple obviously doesn’t offer.”
They’re going after large monitor laptops for a very specific reason. Apple is the market leader in US laptop sales for laptops with monitors 16″ or larger. Yep, #1.
Most people do not realize this. They think of Apple as having this tiny market share because everyone is conditioned to compare Apple market share to Microsoft market share, but Microsoft is a software company. At its heart, Apple is a computer hardware manufacturer. When you compare it to Microsoft market share (ie. all other competitors’ sales combined), it makes Apples seem small, and they can keep playing up the “underdog status”, David vs Goliath, myth. The truth is, in most hardware categories Apple competes in they are either a major player, or the largest player in the space (think iPods in the mp3 category or the 17″ MacBook Pro). And in large monitor laptops, they are the 800 lb. Gorilla (which also gives them some really nice margins).
Chris - Art Director, on April 9th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Why a Vaio? I’m working in 1st-level-support at a university and Vaios make so often problems. Why can’t they buy at least good computers in those ads?
Like a X/T/R-series Thinkpad or a Dell (well the latter one isn’t good for shopping).
Why do they always have to buy the low-quality-stuff? Otherwise it would be comparable to a computer by Apple? Then they should go at least for an older Thinkpad…
Niels K., on April 9th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Microsoft is such a hard company to understand from a PR stand point.
If you own a 360 BR is stupid. You don’t want to buy $30 movies. You want to download them from Live instead. No one really wants or needs BR. BR would probably look really bad on your 50″ HDTV anyway. You should probably stick with DVD.
If you’re buying a laptop one of the most important features is BR. Because 1080P is really required for a 16″ screen and you wouldn’t want to watch any over compressed downloaded HD on that.
Sinister Joe, on April 10th, 2009 at 12:21 am
It is a tell-tale sign that the SOFTWARE company Microsoft has to pitch HARDWARE prices to compare against Apple.
I have to use Windows products for work and I have had an utterly frustrating experience once again with Microsofts incomprehensible OS security in Windows Server 2008, rendering my SQL Server 2008 installation unusable (luckily it is in a VMWare image, so I could snap back).
I cannot get my head around the fact that businesses do not use OSX more, managing installations and programs is so much easier, the user experience is so completely different from Windows. It could save them a really big amount on IT budgets in the long run. I guess if economic rationality would exist, most companies would gladly pay the perceived ‘coolness’ bonus, they’d earn it back within the year.
(o yeah, and if business software makers would be forced to comply to the UI rules of OSX, I bet most people would increase their productivity)
Martijn, on April 10th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Netbooks are an interesting category but considering they run either an obsolete version of Windows or, ::gasp:: Linux, they don’t make a good choice for a national ad campaign. If Microsoft manages to get Windows 7 working well on netbooks, maybe they’ll start using them in ads.
extra88, on April 10th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Let’s not forget that Microsoft’s baby wasn’t Blue-ray but HD, and they lost that battle. What’s also left out is software. Yes, it might come with Vista, but what else does it come with? Vista is nothing by itself, even Paint has only improved slightly since Windows 95 (jpeg support, big deal, it’s no Photoshop or Gimp). And who wants all the expireware that typically comes with these notebooks, one to three months down the road and you’re paying for an expired Anti-virus subscription.
Bigger doesn’t mean better! I’ve had a couple of PC notebooks both with 15″ screens, one was significantly better than the other because of what else was inside (it’s what’s inside that matters right
. What resolution does that 17″ display do? Is it as sharp and bright as other displays? Does it consume more power? There’s a slew of considerations that aren’t mentioned in the ads. And why do they have to buy new?
A few friends have upgraded to the larger 17″ Macbook Pro notebooks and sold their smaller Macbooks for significantly less than what they bought them for with added software.
It seems to be a last stitch effort … no one wants Vista and Windows 7, despite the hype is just Windows 7 in laundered sheep’s skin.
Charles, on April 10th, 2009 at 4:22 am
For me what’s clever is that the Microsoft ad attacks Apple through a 3rd party. MS makes the operating system but the ads are about Sony and HP (and Dell presumably) hardware. If it is the case the Win machines are truly cheaper (a debatably point), are they cheaper because the WinOS is cheaper to install on a given piece of hardware than MacOS? Or is it that the hardware itself is cheaper? If the latter, why don’t the hardware manufacturers come out to make that point rather than MS?
PL, on April 10th, 2009 at 5:30 am
You’re wrong about one thing, Pete. Every person I know over 40 wants a 17″ laptop. They’re not really taking them anywhere, they’re using them on their couch or on their kitchen counter. Their eyes suck (don’t try to explain to them that bigger screen = higher resolution = smaller text) and they want the silly number pad.
I will agree with you on Blu-Ray. I would have liked to have had it on my MBP, but it’s not a deal breaker, and I certainly wouldn’t be watching HD movies at 30k feet. I’ve never seen a PC game on Blu-Ray.
I’ll also agree with you on those terrible stickers plastering the Best Buy name brands. Ugh, that shit just makes them look cheap.
Matt, on April 10th, 2009 at 6:38 am
MS has it right. This is America, shit sells and they have lots of it.
Quality? Who cares about that? Design, craftsmanship and style? In this vapid culture we live in, we need it cheap and we need it now.
MS is just holding the mirror up, don’t blame them for what we see.
Clay, on April 10th, 2009 at 6:54 am
I have to say that this is a very smart, very effective ad campaign. Apple’s ad campaign has painted itself into a corner as an elitist, artsy, Berkely computer. Microsoft has come out with an ad that connects on a real level. It especially deals with the current economic concerns of the consumer.
Also, it deals with the ability for consumers to get a PC that matches exactly what they want. Apple reminds me of Henry Ford, when he said of his popular Model T, “They can get it in any color they want – as long as it is black.”
Jeremy, on April 10th, 2009 at 9:38 am
It’s very interesting that this ad campaign is all about specs-manship. These supposedly neophyte computer buyers are looking for a particular set of specs — and it’s that mindset that plays particularly well to any PC vendor but Apple. These vendors always have lots of specification information on their boxes, in their ads, their marketing materials. It’s because they don’t offer much of any differentiation other than specs and price.
This sets up the whole scenario to be about specs and price. Apple doesn’t fair very well in that scenario at all, because there’s more to a computer than specs and price.
This should appeal very well to consumers who know nothing about Apple — they might assume that a Mac is much like any other computer, except it doesn’t have the specs and the price is higher. All you’re getting is a looking case.
Of course, those of us who know Macs know that design is deeper than the case — that the design goes right into the heart of the operating system, and it’s in this arena the Mac really shines. But Microsoft’s ads aren’t going to let any of that light appear….
Bill Coleman, on April 10th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I just don’t get it. “I wanna watch a movie with 1080 lines of resolution… on a 16″ screen with 768 lines of resolution.”
Whatever.
ItsGene, on April 10th, 2009 at 11:06 am
They always make PCs seem like a second choice to Apple. Its sad that this is how they are advertising themselves instead of just improving their product. Also, if they had gotten an Apple they would have loved it like another Jackson.
Kate, on April 10th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Every Apple store I visit is still full to near-capacity. So I wonder if Microsoft’s ad campaign will have any affect on kids and the “coolness” factor Macs have. The kid was with his mom; of course he bought a PC. Wait ’till he gets to college and figures out why Macs are the big campus go-to computer.
Newton Poetry, on April 10th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
MSFT knows they can’t go head-to-head with APPL’s robust market differentiators of style + quality, so they have to compete (poorly) another way.
Torley, on April 11th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Haha two very valid points by Jeremy. I once bought a 12″ Apple iBook G4 because it was the first Apple laptop priced at around 1000 dollar and had a long battery life. I used it for three years and will mostly remember it for:
-the great-looking hardware
-software with a very limited feature set, based on what Apple thinks you should use your computer for (i.e. iPhoto, Safari… iTunes I liked more though, mostly because I don’t expect it to do anything special)
-a very unresponsive finder that always resized itself to the hardest to use shapes
-extreme waste of screen real estate on such a small screen, especially when using Firefox
-double-clicking on something on my desktop, only to find that the desktop would suddenly refresh, show new files that I had saved or downloaded, and that I had double-clicked on another file than I wanted to open.
-129 dollar service packs
-overpriced mini-VGA to VGA adapter that repeatedly broke
-overpriced power supply that went up in smoke, creating a fire hazard
-an external keyboard that I couldn’t get used to (you could of course use a different keyboard… but then the design cool is gone…)
After that I bought the ugliest-looking Dell laptop ever conceived for half the price of that iBook and I’ve been running Ubuntu on it ever since. That’s the biggest plus of Windows after all: it comes with cheap hardware that’s just as good for running Linux as expensive Apple hardware is
Stephen, on April 11th, 2009 at 11:51 am
“Every Apple store I visit is still full to near-capacity. So I wonder if Microsoft’s ad campaign will have any affect on kids and the “coolness†factor Macs have.”
Actually one of the hosts on Air America Radio suggested that as a consequence of the recession “frugality” was becoming the new cool.
“Wait ’till he gets to college and figures out why Macs are the big campus go-to computer.”
Why? I admit though that the iPod has definitely increased the number of Apple laptops I see on campus.
Stephen, on April 11th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
@SInister Joe
“BR would probably look really bad on your 50″ HDTV anyway”.
That’s crazy talk man.
Joe, on April 11th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
It is kind of sad that MS painted themselves as the kid who couldn’t get the extra scoop of ice cream, or the deluxe pack of playing cards. The only thing they have as a selling point is the hardware. It’s kinda like buying a F150 with a Ford Focus engine.
tony, on April 12th, 2009 at 12:25 am
“But why play up innovation when you can play up cheapness?”
Because the profit margins on netbooks are much smaller than laptops. The computer industry really does not like netbooks for this reason, but they’ve been strong armed by consumers into selling them.
“It is a tell-tale sign that the SOFTWARE company Microsoft has to pitch HARDWARE prices to compare against Apple.”
Unless the PC hardware is being sold, Windows can’t be sold. The PC segment of the industry has never attacked Apple in a major ad campaign that I can recall. So this is the first time Apple has had bombs lobbed at it though ads.
Josh, on April 12th, 2009 at 5:17 am
<<>>
The reason people don’t like 17″ laptops, is price and weight. With the Apple MPB you are talking about a $3000 system. I know this for as fact: I own one. The PC equivalent is about $1000 less.
And lugging around a 7 pound brick is the other problem. All vendors have this in common.
But NO ONE bitches about a 17″ screen size. Can’t beat it for work or home….or even in a ‘coffee shop’…pleez.
Leon, on April 13th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“I’m a PC and I’m 11″ – “And I’m not”
Lol!
Alex, on April 18th, 2009 at 9:28 am
FAST!? My PC after only 3 months took 20 minutes AT LEAST to boot up. And all I did on it was yahoo and myspace. I was too scared to download anything. It was ridiculous. I’m so spoiled now with my MacBook Pro. I run my entire photography business on it and I freak out if I have to wait more than 5 second for anything to load. And this Mac is almost 2 years old. I’m just use to perfection in a computer!! =P
Jennifer, on April 19th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
@jennifer
My 4 year old HP 17″ laptop only takes about 5 minutes to startup (because it’s on windows 7) You must have done some really bad stuff on your PC after 3 months for it to take more than 20 minutes! And it must be a packard bell!
And now you use a Mac for “photography business”?! Of course Macs are only good for image crap! It can’t do games or office! Oh and tell apple to STRETCH THEIR PUNY KEYBOARD on their Macbook Pro’s for God’s sake! Or do only people with small hands use Macs? HAHA!
Pedro Remedios, on May 30th, 2009 at 8:18 am