Guaranteed Better Than Justin Long, Though

The "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" campaign has been translated into English. I mean, British. English/British humo[u]rist and TV personality Charlie Brooker has the right idea:

The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign - the only difference is the use of [David] Mitchell and [Robert] Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show - probably the best sitcom of the past five years - in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.

Here's the problem: you might think, given the existing imbalance between Mac and PC users, that the goal of the campaign is to get PC users to switch. But when the PC -- and by extension, its users -- is shown to be a loser, even a genial loser, the message reads as "You, the PC user, are a loser". People don't like to be insulted, so one reasonable response to such an ad is "Well, fuck you too, my good man."

Perhaps this is a conscious choice; maybe the target audience is people who've never bought a computer before, and aren't already "a PC". In which case, they're not talking to me, so I shouldn't be surprised. But fuck them anyway.

Samples: here, here, here. Via the unpermalinkable quicklinks at Plastic.
- posted by Don Porges @ 2/07/2007 05:20:00 PM |