hopinet

“I’m a PC” – I think Not!

14th December 2008

I’ve been thinking about how odd the “I’m a PC” advert is since the first time it emerged.  I was so surprised when I saw it, if you’ve not seen it yet, you can find it on youtube, basically as I see it, it’s a direct reply to Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” series of adverts. The Apple adverts are attack on some of Windows short comings, I’m not surprised by these adverts, Apple is very much the underdog in terms of number of sales and a good way to ‘steal’ Windows customers is to find out the problems people have with Windows and bang on about them, so people think, “yeh, that does annoy me, is there something else on the market which wouldn’t have that problem?” It has really always been the Apple Strategy, perhaps they have been more vocal about it recently.

These new Windows adverts are the first time I can remember Microsoft having a direct ‘go’ at Apple and to me it almost acknowledges Mac as an alternative, previously Microsoft haven’t even admitted that Apple are a competitor. For me, if they are going to play on Apple’s adverts they have got to flip the adverts on there heads and say ‘Don’t buy a Mac because they aren’t good at……..’, that would be clever, still a bit odd, but I could see it as a proper ‘reply’ to the Apple adverts. All I can take from the Microsoft advert is ‘don’t listen to those Apple adverts, lots of different people use PCs.’ May be I’ve missed the point but does that mean they are any good? A lot of people are over weight, but does that mean it’s a healthy thing to be?

I’m not saying that Microsoft are on the way out, Windows is still the main operating system people use and I can’t see that changing, Mac’s are a premium product and will continue to stay that way, especially with there pricing policy. However, I wonder, does this advert signify that Microsoft are feeling some of the heat from the current popularity of apple products? The Ipod still sells well, the Iphone has been a massive success and more people are switching to Mac. I don’t know, I just find it a very strange advert for Microsoft to do.