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Fri, Nov 21, 2008 - 12:43 AM EST  —  AAPL: 80.49 (-5.80, -6.72%)  |  NASDAQ: 1316.12 (-70.30, -5.07%)

Apple blasts Microsoft’s Windows Vista in new ‘Get a Mac’ television ads
Monday, November 12, 2007 - 09:09 AM EST

Just when we were starting to think they'd forgotten about them, Apple has posted three new "Get a Mac" television ads:

• Podium: In which PC exhorts the sufferers, "Don't give up on Vista!"

Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXcimfzLLoY

• Boxer: Some people just want a computer that's simple and intuitive, that works they way they do. The ring announcer's closing quote is an instant classic, "Actually, my brother-in-law just got a Mac and loves it!"

Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGusvq70V0

• PR Lady: PC hires PR lady to smooth over Vista disappointment and downplay Mac OS X Leopard in effort to ward off switchers.

Direct link via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzhvByaCEic

Apple's "Get a Mac" Webpages are here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Macaday" for the heads up.]

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Reader Feedback: ( = registered)

Nov 12, 07 - 09:16 am Comment from: lol

These are great!

Nov 12, 07 - 09:17 am Comment from: TowerTone

I want a PR Babe!!!

MW:love

Nov 12, 07 - 09:17 am Comment from: Jim

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

I would LOVE to see Ballmer & Gates' reaction to these!

Podium is my favourite, but I love all 3 of 'em!

Nov 12, 07 - 09:19 am Comment from: webbyswim

absolutely brilliant! love them all!

Nov 12, 07 - 09:21 am Comment from: CheekyGit

"No Comment" LOL

She's hot for a suit.

Nov 12, 07 - 09:24 am Comment from: Reclaimer

Cool ads…now run the hell out of them!

I had some stupid cow tell me the other day that Vista was "more Mac-like."

How the hell would she know anyway? She's a PC user!

Vista does look kinda nice…but that's all there is to it.

No substance.

Nov 12, 07 - 09:28 am Comment from: Macromancer

"I had some stupid cow tell me the other day that Vista was "more Mac-like.""

People have been saying that since the 90's.

Nov 12, 07 - 09:30 am Comment from: Petey

ROFL!

'Lose a turn'.

Nov 12, 07 - 09:32 am Comment from: Yours Smugly

Ballmer & Gates can't comment because their heads just exploded after seeing these.

Nov 12, 07 - 09:32 am Comment from: MacRaven

Great!!
Now just make a commercial that shows off the actual OS!
And all the free high end apps you get with a Mac, esp. a new one.

-r

Nov 12, 07 - 09:43 am Comment from: maclover

I saw Vista for the first time, 2 weeks ago - and Wow! is right!!!
The visuals are amazing, honestly, only problem, the experience is perfect for 90's video gaming, extremely annoying for 'getting things done'. What were they thinking? The Vista desktop - is like a digital pinball game -- you spend the first 15 minutes looking for the little ball and some flippers.

Nov 12, 07 - 09:45 am Comment from: John

Ahhh, Podium is the best, for sure. You can't beat "I switched back to XP last week" with a stick

smile

Nov 12, 07 - 09:46 am Comment from: coolfactor

@MacRaven

These are the type of ads that get people's attention and gets them talking. Commercials that show off the OS itself would be completely ignored by the majority of consumers.

I'm glad Apple isn't showing off the new Leopard desktop. The really interesting parts of Leopard aren't the visual aspects. The rest would just sound like "me too" statements to most consumers. These ads stand apart from that.

Nov 12, 07 - 09:52 am Comment from: Macaday

@Reclaimer: you should have told your PC ladyfriend that it was like you saying that 'she looked like Kate Moss because she has eyelashes..'

You have to laugh when people say Vista is Mac-like..

Hot PR and Boxer are gems. But as I can't get Skype to work at the moment I feel a bit of the Vista incompatibility issue myself..

Nov 12, 07 - 09:54 am Comment from: Macaday

"The Vista desktop - is like a digital pinball game -- you spend the first 15 minutes looking for the little ball and some flippers."

Best review of Vista I ever read - thanks maclover!

Nov 12, 07 - 09:57 am Comment from: Camel's Milk Drinker

Benches! Benches! loverly benches for sale!! BOGOF!!! Buy One Get One Free!!!

Benches! Benches! loverly benches for sale!! includes handy handle to assist in throwing it further than chairs!!!

Benches! Benches! more loverly than wenches!!! especially if you are an M$ executive!!!!

Benches! Fenches! Wenches! get them now while the tempers are hot!!!

Nov 12, 07 - 10:06 am Comment from: Gil

Genius Girl is still the hottest.....

Nov 12, 07 - 10:09 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

Apple does a Three Stooges bit with these. Slap across the face... a mallet whack to the head and a good poke in the eyes.

Showing Leopard (or even Jaguar) features really wouldn't do much. Like those car ads that rattle through a bunch of specs... who cares, it's just another look alike silver car... zzzzzzzzzzzz.

These ads get people thinking, with a laugh, which is what good advertising should do. At this point I'd guess that just about every computer user... Mac, Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, whatever... have heard Vista horror stories... as if we forgot all those XP horror stories from BEFORE Vista. So, there's context that people can relate to. I know several switchers who decided enough was enough and the thought of wrestling with Vista was TOO MUCH! So, they switched to Macs.

Microsoft is GIVING Apple ammunition... MS keeps XP on store shelves, Dell sells XP loaded machines, etc., etc., etc..

Then there's iPod and iPhone 24/7 everywhere you look.
These are good days to be Mac users!

Nov 12, 07 - 10:10 am Comment from: MZ

Man, you guys are pretty sad if a middle-aged woman in a grey business suit talking about PC's is getting you hot and bothered.

You need to stop refreshing the pages in this forum and get out more.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:11 am Comment from: Gasser

What's up with the white Apple logo on the iMac in these clips? Is this a new BTO option I've missed?

Nov 12, 07 - 10:15 am Comment from: Raymond from DC

PR Lady's "No comment", while not as good as the "sad realization" of an earlier ad, is priceless. But I don't understand why some don't want Apple to show Macs or Leopard in action. Virtually every iPhone ad does exactly that, often quite dramatically.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:16 am Comment from: MZ

@Gasser

No, it's just the lighting they used to disguise all the reflections and glare from the glossy screens has also taken the shine off the chrome logo.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:17 am Comment from: YoYo

I heard Steve Ballmer had ordered a truck load of new chairs.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:17 am Comment from: Stuart

Apple BLASTS!! I'm starting to think MDN is really a tabloid newspaper.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:22 am Comment from: MZ

"But I don't understand why some don't want Apple to show Macs or Leopard in action. Virtually every iPhone ad does exactly that, often quite dramatically."

----------------------

That's because the iPhone has a multi-touch user interface which is something that has never been seen before on any device. It's quite easy to show how pinch, squeeze and zoom works on an iPhone in 30 seconds..

In contrast, OSX's iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD would not appear to be all that different from PC applications until you actually spend some time using them. At first glance iPhoto looks quite similar to Vista's photo application.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:23 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

@ Gil
"Genius Girl is still the hottest....."

Totally. But did anyone else think the PR babe was Jammie Lee Curtis for a second?

Nov 12, 07 - 10:27 am Comment from: Less is More

This is getting a bit old. Yeah a lot of people are still using Windoze but I think it's time to move on to ads which let the OS do the talking.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:30 am Comment from: @ PR Babe

You have just one too many buttons on that blouse.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:35 am Comment from: tz

Hey MZ!!! That Lady in the suit is young and cute . . . see that's the joy of being 55 . . . an ever larger percentage of females are younger & cuter! :D

Nov 12, 07 - 10:36 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

@ Less is More

That'll work. Right after we start seeing positive political ads.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:43 am Comment from: Jonh

Say what you want, but Vista is more stable than Leo.

Nov 12, 07 - 10:51 am Comment from: Winnie

@jonh

Just an FYI. "Leo" is short for "Leonardo," not "Leopard."

Nov 12, 07 - 11:01 am Comment from: DLMeyer

You want to show Leopard "working"? There are but a few graphic changes, beyond that it mostly looks "the same". OK, "close enough for gubmint wurk".
What I'd like to show Apple is how a couple of things used to work in Safari 2 but no longer work in Safari 3 - but still work in Firefox.
I'd like to know how to get Folding@Home to run in "nice" mode ... again.
I'd like ... well, actually, most of the rest is just great. But I don't dare put it on my wife's Al iMac at least until 10.5.1, maybe 10.5.2, fixes at least a couple of these problems.
Why show Leopard when that will just give the FUD-meisters a standing target to take pot-shots at. Make them work for it! I haven't heard of anyone switching back to Tiger from Leopard, which is the focus of these three ads.
Check out Meyer for President for an amusing attack from the Radical Center. wink
(I won't mention this again if nobody complains about "this time")

Nov 12, 07 - 11:03 am Comment from: Micro Me

Only 55 tz? A youngster. grin

These ads are not bad, but "Security" is still my favourite.

Nov 12, 07 - 11:10 am Comment from: therepguy

I saw one of the adds and laughed my head off for the next 5 minutes... there great and very pointed!

Its' official now Microsoft is the laughting stock of the whole industry... and they earned that title with Vista!

Vista little more that old software... reworked and batched up... all in the package!

Nov 12, 07 - 11:17 am Comment from: Don

Less is More wrote: "... I think it's time to move on to ads which let the OS do the talking."

Respectfully, that's probably not a good idea. The key to advertising was, is, and will always be: "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." In this case, merely showing the OS is trying to sell the steak. Instead, the goal is to help people make an emotional attachment to the produce by showing its benefits. Compare:

They don't sell jeans by focusing on how the fabric is made.
They don't sell cars by focusing on the auto's fuel injection system.
They don't sell gum by focusing on the ingredients.
They don't sell Mickey-D's by focusing on how the cows are slaughtered.

Look at laundry detergent. They sell it by simply saying it gets your clothes cleaner, it does a better job than other detergents, or you'll FEEL BETTER (fresher, prouder, happy, etc.) if you use their detergent.

To do good advertising for OS X, they need to help people have an emotional attachment to the OS, not brag about the advances in QuickTime or that there are MORE! EMOTICONS! IN! ICHAT!

Personally, I think they're doing a great job selling the sizzle and not the steak (AKA selling benefits, not features). The massive sales and profits earned by Apple seems to prove that point.

Nov 12, 07 - 11:17 am Comment from: Renderdog

Apparently I'm in the minority here but to me these ads don't seem quite as funny as many of the earlier ones. But maybe they will be good for their intended audience, people who haven't heard about all the problems with Vista.

Nov 12, 07 - 11:55 am Comment from: Vmac

@ Gil
Maybe you forgot the one with Giselle.

Nov 12, 07 - 11:56 am Comment from: ../.

Raymond from DC: PR Lady's "No comment", while not as good as the "sad realization" of an earlier ad, is priceless. But I don't understand why some don't want Apple to show Macs or Leopard in action. Virtually every iPhone ad does exactly that, often quite dramatically.

It works for the iPhone because the multitouch GUI is totally different than what's out there and you grasp this new concept in 30 seconds. Also, the features such as a full blown web browser stand out by themselves. However, the distinction between Mac OS X and Windows is not that clear unless you actually use the OSes. What can you say in 30 seconds to show that Mac OS X is miles ahead of Windows? You may show Time Machine, but you'll spend most of the time explaining what Time Machine is and why you should back up your files instead of what Time Machine can do and how it does it.

Nov 12, 07 - 11:57 am Comment from: B

Renderdog is right.

These latest commercials have really run out of steam. The earlier ones were much more subtle, clever, and funnier.

Nov 12, 07 - 12:01 pm Comment from: Paul Zune's Dong

The PR babe is Mary Chris Wall, best known for her role on the PBS kids series Wishbone.

Nov 12, 07 - 12:11 pm Comment from: BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots

Never let people who know nothing about audience tell you something about PR. Do you think an ad that shows Leopard in action will make a big impression with a television audience? Why? You have 30 seconds to make your point. Not only that, it has to be memorable, repeatable, and simple. That is not the forum for discussing OS differences.

In short, the people who want to see "the OS do the talking" are tone-deaf and know nothing about the area they claim to know so much about.

Nov 12, 07 - 12:29 pm Comment from: KenC

I don't know why, but when PR lady was talking about "upgrading to a more familiar experience", I kept thinking she was talking about herself. Trade in younger g/f for the older more familiar one!

Nov 12, 07 - 12:32 pm Comment from: Eric

Jonh, more stable? For what? Hardly anything runs in it correctly.

Nov 12, 07 - 01:44 pm Comment from: ken1w

PR people use Macs...

Nov 12, 07 - 01:47 pm Comment from: Gasser

@MZ

Every (current)iMac I've seen has a gloss black Apple logo which matches the black display bezel. Not a chrome logo. Just curious why the ad makers favored a white logo, clearly with Apple's consent.

Nov 12, 07 - 02:05 pm Comment from: Constable Odo

Not even much point in poking fun at Vista. Leopard is more user friendly and users will be satisfied for the most part. (I've used Vista Ultimate in Parallels on my MacBook Pro 2.33 and it required too much processing power). I'm more than satisfied running Windows XP Pro for my Windows needs.

I never did like smear advertisements. It's okay to boost your products, but not by tearing down another product.

I guess these ads are meant to be funny, but they really just seem like a cheap shot at Microsoft. Like Microsoft gives a damn.

Nov 12, 07 - 02:19 pm Comment from: Merv

The older model has a less twitchy uvula.

Nov 12, 07 - 03:30 pm Comment from: Shane

The Podium ad is improperly named. He is standing behind a Lectern and not on a Podium. The ad shoud be named Lectern.

Pet peeve, I'll take a few breaths and move on.

Nov 12, 07 - 03:33 pm Comment from: His Shadow

A good example of what is wrong with Microsoft and Windows is the Zip extraction tool. What does it say when you right click on a .zip file? "Extract All..."

What happens when you click on that? You get a ridiculous Wizard that forces you to click thru pointless screens just to get the job done.
The command says "Extract All". So why can't Windows just extract the damn file to a sub folder in that directory, pop up the newly created folder with the files in view and be done with it?

Or anytime you attach a portable drive. Notice after notice after notice of what's happening. How about just a simple popup teliing you that it's working? And why can't it then just open the "My Computer" and show the newly added drive? No, it has to bring up another wizard to get in your way, asking you if you want to transfer the entire contents of the new drive to yours, which doesn't have global options the very first time it runs to tell it "Never Bother Me With This Again On Any Device Ever You Retards". For that I have to dig around in some other collection of checkboxes and settings to tell it to leave me the hell alone.

The Mac leaves you alone unless it actually is important. After all, you have better things to do.

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