On advertising (mac/PC edition) October 28, 2009

I’ll fully admit that I’m not a good target for ads.  I have a habit of not really paying attention and even when something does catch and keep my attention my poor memory often gets in the way.  All of my favorite ads in history are for “some cellphone company” or “some investment firm” or something else I can’t remember.

At any rate I saw an ad today and I actually can remember what it’s for.  It’s the new mac ad bashing the release of windows 7 (aka vista service pack 2).  I pretty much remember most of this series of commercials, because I don’t like any of them.  They are simply mean, just like political ads bashing an opponent.  I believe if you or your product is so bad you feel the need to speak poorly of the competitor it says something about you, something not good.

This particular ad had the PC character talking very happily about the release of windows 7 and saying it’s going to fix all the problems of vista.  The mac character then replies, saying that seems familiar.  The ad then goes on to show a series of what are obviously flashbacks covering previous releases of windows operating systems, each time the PC character is saying it’s going to fix the problems of the previous version.  I understand this is where they expect me to stop thinking and conclude that windows sucks and therefor mac must be good.

I’m not like that though.

I noticed that in each flashback the PC character is going through some substantial changes in order to match the time frame that the scene is appropriate for.  Meanwhile the mac character pretty much changes clothes, not style or anything, just different jeans and so forth.  This to me indicates that while windows has accepted that they have shortcomings and worked to fix them and adjust for the changing times mac has kept things basically the same with only minor and superficial changes.  This leads me to conclude that I should purchase the PC over the mac because they’re at least trying to improve and only an idiot would think any operating system is ever perfect.

Like I said, I don’t think advertising works on me like it’s suppose to.