Apple's Switch Ads

[Bondo]

Ok, I have to say most of these ads are extremely grating or annoying and I don't think they'd be effective.  Then I saw the one with Tony Hawk...now that is the one Apple should be showing.  They should be doing more celebs who use Macs.  And what about Pixar...they make blockbuster after blockbuster so you think they could do a big Mac ad that way...that is if having a Mac in virtually every movie or TV show since 1985.  Apple kicks ass with the free product placement.

Anyway, back to the point, by having Tony Hawk give props to Apple it really makes them hip to the kids and that is how they are going to best expand IMO.

[PsYcO aSsAsSiN]

I think most of the switch ads are lame and are ineffective in making people "switch" their computers. While Macs are better pieces of hardware, I think anybody who would switch because of these ads are in for a big surprise when they find out that they can't run any of their favorite programs on a Mac.

As for your second point, I seriously doubt that Macs have free product placement...I guarantee you they pay money like everyone else to get their products shown in favorable light.

[Mr. Lothario]

     I'm with you; I find most of them quite silly, and some are obnoxious. However, they are working. It's a successful campaign, so hey, it works for me.

[Bondo]

Sin, I wasn't joking about Apple computers being in virtually every movie and TV show.  To pay for all those placements would be WAY more than Apple has to spend on advertising.  The film and TV industry uses Apple computers and thus use Apple computers whenever they need a computer in the movie (unless said computer is malfuntioning in which case it is a PC).  I suppose Apple may give deals to said companies and that is what gets them shown, but they absolutely aren't paying placement fees like other companies would.

[Ace]

While Macs are better pieces of hardware, I think anybody who would switch because of these ads are in for a big surprise when they find out that they can't run any of their favorite programs on a Mac.

The people who would switch because of these adds are your basic consumer who doesn't know much about computers. I highly doubt these ads will change the opinion of people who are into computers; anyone into computers will have formed their own opinion based on their personal knowledge. So for these basic consumers, all their favorite programs (besides a couple games) will run on a Mac. AOL/AIM, Internet Explorer, Office, etc. I think Sin has become too much of a Windows fanboy and has fallen into stereotyping Macs incorrectly. I guess that's what going to a crappy school does for you, hehe. :P

[PsYcO aSsAsSiN]

Two things:

One, your opinions are completely off and based on assumption Bondo. Have you ever been to a movie set or know anyone in the business? If you did, you would know that their aren't computers on the movie set most of the time. Computers are only brought in during the editing process of the movie. So your theory that Macs are in the movies just because they are used is wrong. Macs are used because quite frankly, they are the only identifiable brand (you see an iMac, you think Mac.) and only used when Apple ponies up the money for them to be put in movies. If anything, a PC is easier to find and more generic to stick int he picture. While Apple probably doesn't pay much to have product placement in movies, they still have to pay or else a PC would probably be placed in the movie.

Two, Ace, I am the anti-windows PC user - I am seriously thinking about going over to red-hat linux. My above posted comment was on that anyone who would fall for the "switch" campaign is probably a tard who thinks when he hears the line "My Mac can do anything a PC can" as meaning that he could run any program that he had ont he PC on the Mac. This is not true. The switchee would either have to re-purchase all of the software for the Mac, or invest in a virtualXP type program to use his programs, and that would defeat the purpose of him switching. Apple is misleading people and doing a shitty job of getting people to convert. I for one think it is a shitty campaign and can be helped significantly by firing their current ad agency and hiring a new one who knows what the hell they are doing.

Blah, it is late...

[Ace]

Well, the thing is you can get pretty much any program the average consumer needs for free (besides games) on a Mac. I paid a grand total of $40 for all the non-gaming applications on my computer, and that was for Appleworks which comes free with an iMac. I don't think Apple has come straight out and said a Mac can do anything a PC can do; they just have people talking about things that worked better on Macs. Don't confuse this with me supporting those ads though. I think they are stupid just as you.

You mention about switching to Linux. That's a good idea. As for distro choices, I would recommend you look seriously at either Mandrake or Debian. Red Hat is supposed to be the most user-friendly, but from people I have talked to Mandrake is better as long as you are computer literate. Debian's package management rocks. Apt is better than the rpm system you see in Red Hat/Mandrake. Althought Debian is a bitch to install from what I hear, it may be worth looking into.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Actually, in a number of movies, the star wanted the computers in the movie to be Macs. F'rinstance, Independence Day: Jeff Goldblum is a big Mac user (remember the iMac ads he did? IIRC, he volunteered for those). Mission: Impossible 2: Tom Cruise is a big Mac user. There are others, but I can't remember them off of the top of my head. I don't know whether that means that Apple didn't have to pay for the placement (doubtful), but it's an interesting fact.

     Also, keep in mind that Apple is definitely pursuing multiple angles of advertising attack. There's a huge two-page full color Apple ad in nearly every issue of Game Developer magazine, as well as in other magazines whose demographic is far more technically savvy than your average prime time tv viewer. Those ads are generally extolling the UNIX underpinnings of OS X and the integration of the GUI on top of it. In other words, playing to the propellerheads. The Switch ads are to make the average Joe think about Macs, and the other ads are to make the above-average Joe think about Macs. OS X is going over like gangbusters with the so-called "alpha geeks" on Slashdot. Lots of die-hard Linux users have switched after going to Linux conferences and seeing the large numbers of tiBooks that people were using to hack on. Even two of Slashdot's big dogs are considering switching, which is huge. The alpha geeks are switching, and they're the ones who are making the hardware recommendations at companies. This can only have beneficial results for Apple, as long as they keep playing it well and smart.

[Deadeye]

i don't care much for the ads myself, but they do seem to be working on the target audience.

for 90% of computer users out there, you can do anything on a mac that you can on a pc.  gaming it the place where macs trail the most.  an average user uses e-mail, web, word processing, spreadsheet, accounting (like quicken) and thats about it.  remember, those reading this are not average computer users.  first, only 1 in 10 homes in america have broadband today.  while i'll bet that over half the people here have it.

also, i'm sure apple pays a good bit of money for most of that product placement.  whoever thinks that apple doesn't have that budget probably also believes that the $150 million from microsoft saved apple (while apple still had hundreds of millions of liquid assets in banks).  don't believe the popular myths that apple has ever been cash poor.  they haven't.  they had a few years of losing money, but they made so much cash in the 80's, they could run at that loss for a decade before the money ran out.  look beyond the headlines down to the actual balance sheets, and you'll see what i mean.

as for pixar, last i knew, they didn't use macs to do their rendering.  so they can't really do a mac ad, can they?

[(SiX)Ben]

Anyway, back to the point, by having Tony Hawk give props to Apple it really makes them hip to the kids and that is how they are going to best expand IMO.

Bondo, just saying "hip" makes it so totally uncool...

Unfortunately, I don't know what you guys are aiming for? Mac revolution?! It'd be nice, but lets face it folks... It'll never happen, at least not while PC's are cheaper, more games are supported there, and the large fan base revolves around PC...

Ben

[Mr. Lothario]

     No, there isn't going to be a magical revolution where Apple becomes the 800-pound gorilla, but the number of Mac users is increasing, in both the average and l33t user bases. This is a good thing, and what with Palladium, it will probably only accelerate.

[+-KoS-+ Gorf]

wtf is this "linux" bs and why do people use it?

i hear it all the time.  even tried installing it once but gave up 2 min into the installation...

[Ace]

wtf is this "linux" bs and why do people use it?

i hear it all the time.  even tried installing it once but gave up 2 min into the installation...

Linux is a kernel based on minnix that is fully POSIX compliant (read: it's Unix). It was created in 91 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish computer scientist. Now GNU/Linux is the most popular open source Unix. There are a bunch of different distributions (distros) by companies like Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSe, Debian, and so on. Think of different distros like web browsers; they all do the same things basically, the just have different styles and ways of going about it sometimes. People use it because you have the ability to change whatever you want and because it's free (as in beer).

[Mr. Lothario]

     The nontechnical answer (as opposed to Ace's technical answer): it's an industrial-strength OS which has been poked and prodded into running on desktop machines, and has many good qualities and a few major bad qualities. It is extremely popular because it is freely available for free and also because it is open source, meaning anyone who wants to can poke around in its innards.