What Will “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” Ads Look Like When Web Browsers Rule The World?

In adversity there is opportunity (at least that’s what the motivational types always say), and it’s remarkable how much adversity Microsoft’s endured before getting serious about its advertising.

The Mac vs PC marketing wars have tilted heavily in the direction of the Mac – due in large part to the funny (and effective) “Hi, I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” campaign rolled out by Apple, which has become the Officially Designated Satirical Format for almost every would-be-viral videomaker on YouTube.

After a fairly stringy “I’m a PC” campaign, Microsoft – apparently finally realizing the danger – launches on the Mac by riffing on the high cost of Apple’s products, a move guaranteed to enrage Mac Fanboys everywhere:

True or not, it’s nice to see that both sides are ratcheting up their marketing campaigns, which should prove amusing (for those of us who can still tear themselves away from Twitter long enough to watch).

Which oddly begs the next question (OK, I did write it):

How are Mac, PC & Linux going to differentiate themselves in the cloud computing era – when so much of what we do flows through nearly identical browsers largely indifferent to the OS?

Firefox looks pretty much the same no matter which platform you’re using. Same for most of the social media clients we use (and that’s true for Linux too, save the ongoing lack of a great blog editor).

After all, “Hi, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC, and most of the time, you can’t tell us apart” doesn’t sound like the basis for a compelling ad campaign.

Will the playing field continue to tilt towards the Mac’s rich media/content creation goodness? Will Windows 7 rectify some of Vista’s worst shortcomings? Will the uber-affordable, high-performance Linux desktop distributions make any headway?

More importantly, what will the ad campaigns look like? What will the differentiators really look like? I’m dying to see.

And yes, I believe there’s ample opportunity for Linux to make marketing headway by leveraging its underdog status, and the utter lack of a financial model for marketing suggests the need for a fun, innovative social media campaign.

Frankly, that would be a fun campaign to write; when you’re on the bottom in terms of market share, you’ve got nothing to lose – which is when creatives should have the most fun.

Today’s Bonus  Time Killers

As someone who bought a 128K Mac in 1985, switched to a PC in the 90s, and now use Linux, I’m clearly one of the true cranks of the desktop computing world, and feel compelled to include the Mac vs PC vs Linux version of Apple’s famous ad:

For Those Without Twitter Accounts to Distract You

We present fifteen Mac vs PC ads placed end to end:

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

Scanned from Newsweek, but aimed at GenX (and younger)?

And we’ve gotta ask: Will Oscar Mayer’s target market truly understand Blogworthy?

Me? I vote thumbs up. The concept mixes a little edge and some fun with an ever-so-slight amount of self-deprecating humor. And yes, Oscar Mayer is clearly more interested in the “connected” generation than they are the old geezers (like the one writing this blog post).

Critique?

• I might have shoehorned another benefit into the copy (we get “under 350 calories” and “microwave minute” which isn’t bad)
• Oscar Mayer supports a blog of their own and some fun online goodies on their site (Oscar Mayer Pong) – why not reference it in this ad?

The Hotdogger.com blog follows the Weinermobile’s location on Google.

In an era when new media channels are coming online almost hourly, large organizations often struggle to achieve true integration across all marketing channels. Sometimes that’s due to departmental turf wars, but often it’s simply the result of tunnel vision.

And yes, the smart freelance writer will spot integration issues for a client, and offer to fix them (after all, nothing’s more endearing than being useful).

What’s your hit – fun ad, or total marketing baloney?

Keep writing, Tom Chandler

Two days ago, I was informed that “PattyHewes” was following me on Twitter. I took a quick look, but didn’t recognize the photo of Glen Close.

I did, however, notice the hardass tweets, which included:

@gjkooijman That’s what Tom Shayes discovered. He thought he was ready to run the show after years of being in my shadow. How wrong he was.

Everyone thinks they want to be at the top. But most are just fooling themselves. Few have the stomach for it. Or the balls.

OK, that’s not someone I need to follow.

I forgot about it until the next day, when I was followed by another character who tweeted “If @PattyHewes is following you, you *should* be scared. You should be terrified.”

That got my attention.

A quick visit, then I put the pieces together – both were characters in a TV series called “Damages” and I’d been Twitterbaited (I thought I’d made that up myself until I googled it).

It’s a creative tactic, though a little unsettling to see TV characters crossing the digital divide into the “real” world (the “reality” of Twitter could probably be debated).

The characters are adding new tweets (about one per day), and the list of followed and followers continues to grow.

Will some consider this the Twitter equivalent of spam; a breach of etiquette that will outweigh the advertising aspect?

Keep writing, Tom Chandler