Will Apple’s Ads ‘Work’?
5May2006 Filed under: Advertising, Branding, Customer Experience Author: DUST!N
Apple recently released some fairly clever advertising.
What Works
As usual, Apple’s ads are carefully branded as they continue with a very clean and cool image. Unlike most of the iTunes ads, these strike a humorous tone. They are playful. Even so, they are not insultingly simple. Instead of playing the PC as a stupid or obnoxious character who you hate, he is a lovable but slightly incompetent representation. Amusingly, John Hodgman bears a striking resemblance to a chubby Bill Gates. Actually, the choice of Justin Lang as the Mac may be an allusion to a young Steve Jobs as well.
The spots tackle some pretty important issues separating PCs and Macs: restart issues, Apple’s bundled software, plug-and-playing nice with 3rd party hardware, viruses, and product value.
What Doesn’t Work (at work)
I don’t find a whole lot wrong with this advertising. It perpetuates the current word of mouth for Apple’s computers while subtly addressing what were once weaknesses (networking with PCs, software availability, pricing). Still, it may reinforce too heavily the opinion that Macs are only for personal use. If you want a business computer, then go with a PC.
If this is the entirety of Apple’s creative direction for their Macs, then ads like these may not give much help to one of the few brown spots of Apple. The ads do mention two factors very important to businesses: networking with PCs and running Microsoft Office. But the visual representation of the Mac in these ads is anything but business. In a 2004 interview with Walt Mossberg (yes, the same guy who said the iMac is ‘it’s the finest desktop PC on the market, at any price.’), Steve Jobs was quoted as saying,
… you know, we’re not so good at selling to the enterprise…
I don’t think these ads do anything to change that statement.
2 Responses to “Will Apple’s Ads ‘Work’?”
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Creative Consultant - The Frontline Group
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Scott Stone
May 5th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Dustin,
One of the things Apple is probably thinking is that the “IT establishment” outside the creative world is solidly, dogmatically Windows. Most of them train on it - exclusively. All of them I know hate the idea of Macs on their networks (I had to sneak mine on). Many of them are hostile to the idea of a Mac. Selling through them is going to be difficult. Although they may not spec every network, they have enormous influence on what’s purchased.
I actually thought these ads were kinda narcissistic. And very basic, which isn’t a bad thing. Apple is appealing to the creative user, and maybe throwing a bone to the casual user. I might have tried to tie the Mac to the iPod more if I were them.
One thing that might be useful is for them to evangelize to the IT community to soften its resistance to all things non Microsoft. I doubt they are doing that, although they might be. When I bought my MacBook, the CDW guy was fairly clueless about it, a pretty sad testimony to where Mac sits, even with its resellers.
DUST!N
May 8th, 2006 at 8:53 am
I agree Scott. It will definitely take more than advertising to evangelize those network admins who detest anything other than Windows. I’ve seen reports that Apple’s gains in businesses are typically conversions from non-Windows platforms like Linux. So, we may be seeing a consolodation of anti-Windows users.