Okay, so why were their ads so great then and MS are not? I just look at them both and shake my head. Actually, in our house, the TV goes on mute for all commercials.
There is a reason Apple is a branding powerhouse. Their ads work on different levels. Apple does a great job telling its brand story, which is consistent and made very clear over the long term.
Apple's ads work because the viewer sees the exchange between the two characters played out skilfully and with sly humour.
They don't tell us something we don't think we already know.
More specifically, the campaign exemplifies the clever use of "framing", which is the selective control of information used to shape a viewers perception. A simple example is the term tax relief. If you have an anti-taxation agenda, tax relief is a much more powerful term than tax cut because it frames taxes as a "burden" from which people need "relief." The term assumes its own premise and thereby frames our perception.
In the Get a Mac campaign, Apple frames an (artificial) dualism, and then reinforces the dualism with powerful metaphors. The dualism frames two options: either you use a PC (understood to mean Windows) or a Mac. Those are your options.
To force the viewers decision, Apple uses the extremely dry-witted John Hodgman (who is actually the more talented of the pair) to play the part of the PC as a bland-looking, frumpy businessman. They contrast Hodgman with a relaxed, young hipster-type in the role of the Mac. On seeing the commercial, its clear which guy you would rather be like. The archetypal roles portraying Mac and PC ring true to real life experience, which cleverly enforces the dualism Apple is pushing.
The campaign is nothing short of absolutely brilliant advertising. Its seemingly simple, and its fun and witty. It also sets up an understanding of the difference between Macs and PCs that people readily accept, and the whole framework is extremely memorable.
Or to put it in another way, the Mac ads work so well because they frame the Mac (or the Apple product) against a product
that is already perceived to be a copycat, or inferior, or less desirable in the public consciousness.
When you see John Hodgman in those ads, the first thing that comes to mind is "Yup, that's good old Windows for ya." Crashes, instability, and BSODs. Apple simply plays on the image and the prejudices that are already there. When the average person thinks Windows, they either think of the painful, boring machine they use at work, or they think of error messages, issues, viruses, or the last time they asked their "techie" friend to "clean" their computer. Windows has a lousy reputation in the consumer market and has always had image issues when compared to the Mac. It's all about what we already perceive to be the truth.
