Microsoft scores another hit against Apple
Microsoft's latest "You find it ... you keep it" ad throws another loaded hornet's nest into the Apple camp. Apple fanboys and press, predictably, react violently, playing right into Microsoft's hands.
If you've not seen it yet, check out the ad:
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Now, Giampaolo describes himself as "technically savvy", so I'm somewhat surprised by the fact that he walks out of Best Buy with an HP HDX16tbecause this is a big, heavy system powered by a battery that's really not up to the job of keeping such a big machine supplied with juice. If you're lucky enough to have fifteen Benjamins to spend on a portable system, you can do a lot better than this system.
However, by getting caught up in the minutiae of ad it's easy to miss the point. Just like the "Lauren" ad, this ad doesn't set out to change the minds of those entrenched Mac users. Its purpose is to sway those who are toying with the idea of buying their first Mac, and re-enforcing the message that Macs are expensive and overpriced to those who believe that Macs are expensive and overpriced.
Then there's the primed grenade into the Mac camp:
"Macs to me are all about aesthetics more than they are the computing power. I don't want to pay for the brand, I want to pay for the computer."
See, the whole point of these ads is to put the PC vs. Mac war onto a price footing because that's the crowd that Microsoft is preaching to here. Most people don't know enough or understand enough about what makes one PC different from another and most generally go shopping with a price in their heads and some vague criteria as to what they want. The underlying message in both of these commercials is that Macs are for people with more money than sense and value style over function, and that PCs are the sensible choice for the rest of us.
Microsoft has aimed to redefine the PC vs. Mac argument and shift the focus away from the relative merits of the operating systems and onto price and the hardware. And judging by the coverage, it's working, because the emphasis has shifted onto dissecting the hardware. So, despite being a Microsoft ad, the Redmond giant threw HP into the ring with Apple and stood back and watch whatever sparks fly go HP's way.
I still think that Apple will let these ads slide because anything else puts the company on a defensive, reactionary footing.