The other day I was watching TV with a friend when one of Microsoft’s "I’m a PC" ads played on. She didn’t understand the commercial because she hadn’t paid much attention to Apple’s Get a Mac ads. She asked about the John Hodgman lookalike guy who opens the Window’s commercial. Who is he? Why is he calling himself a PC? We hopped on the Internet and watched a couple Get a Mac ads so she'd have a frame of reference. After seeing the Mac ads she said, "Now I understand, but why would they tie themselves to the Mac ads?" She had a point.
Let me summarize – Whoever tells the best story wins. Because Microsoft couldn’t tell a better story, they unwittingly framed their story in terms of the story that Apple created. You can only make sense of the Windows ad, by telling yourself the Mac story first. And any reference to the Microsoft ads will make people think of the beautiful picture Apple painted with its story. Apple wins. Kick back Apple. Relax. Microsoft just threw millions of dollars into the Apple ad budget. Microsoft is now marketing your products for you.
In fact, the Microsoft ad makes little sense. First, in the Apple ads, the "I’m a PC", and "I’m a Mac" roles played by the actors are a metaphor. Each actor is a personification of a computer operating system. I’ll explain why this is important in a moment, however let’s think about the statement in the Microsoft ad: “I’m a PC.” It’s really a career branding statement that is rather silly. The next time you want a raise try going into the boss man's office and say, “I’m a PC.” Not gonna work too well, is it? Instead, don’t be a clone, create your own brand statement. Something like “I design remarkable customer experiences that create loyal customers,” may work a little better.
Why do the Apple ads work so well? When I first saw the Get a Mac ads a couple years ago I thought, “Wow, Apple’s doin’ some really shrewd things with story.” Here’s why Apple’s telling the best story.
Compare and Contrast Products: The Get a Mac ads are similar to a Keynote slide with two images side by side, showing before and after images. The PC is the image with the negative attributes (crashes, hard to use), the Mac is the image with the positive attributes (Leopard is stable, easy to use). I used this technique to evangelize Wikis. Note the metaphor in the headline.
Perhaps it’s natural to organize the images from left to right, because when we read our eyes move across the page from left to right, and the hero's transformation enters our mind in this fashion. Cinderella is transformed into a Princess.
Demo Story: Apple’s software frameworks are supposed to help developer’s build software faster through modeling or simulation. So it should be no surprise that the Apple ad is a simulation of how a PC and Mac work. The PC and Mac guy are a personification of a computer operating system. The next best thing to laying your hands on a Mac is to see a simulation or demo of one. The Mac ad is a demo story that shows the benefits of a Mac. And to make the story believable, the story is congruent with Apple’s products.
Story Concepts: The ads are created using story concepts. There’s a scene, there’s a goal, there’s an obstacle in most of the ads. In the Pizza Box ad, PC wants to sell more PCs but college students love Macs. PC has a Plan, seduce students with a free pizza, then sell them a PC.
Ohh, If only Microsoft’s ad team had thought of the pizza plan, they would’ve saved a mountain of dough.
