New Apple ad "Misprint" cites PC World on fastest Vista laptop

It's not just the "Mac is faster" bit. It's the fact that when PC can't get what he wants with the truth, he resorts to lying.

BALLMER!

"Zune has 25% market share!"

I thought it was an excellent commercial.

John Davis

I think you are all missing the point: Hodgman will unleash his army of Molemen on Apple if they stop cutting him checks.

My MacBook Pro runs Vista faster than any PC notebook, but heck, it runs Windows XP even faster than it runs Leopard. Cool. No. Something isn't right. It does seem to run Leopard faster than both Vista and Windows XP, but maybe it won't once I update Windows XP to SP3. No. Something still isn't right. Maybe I'll just have to run all three of them at the same time and check for speed. Now that's really cool. Now where did I put my copy of VMWare Fusion 1.1?

Get a Mac and don't be slack, Jack.

I agree with jbelkin. Marketing to a mass audience is about delivering a simple, effective message with emotional resonance. Apple uses different techniques to drive home different messages. The sum of these messages is that Macs provide many advantages over Windows.

Saying the same thing solely with "feature" ads sounds good, but it's been done before. In the mid/late 1990s, Apple took out multi-page ads in magazines. They had all kinds of technical info, results of productivity studies, and the like. Those ads didn't last long. Also recall that after Jobs returned, the G4 and G5 ads often talked about speed. But the iMac ads had a much simpler message with much better emotional resonance: the iMac is fun. That was it. And the marketing worked. Apple learned from this experience and has been taking it to the bank ever since.

jbelkin has it right.
And as much as I, also, keep thinking that ads tha "demo" the OS or iLife etc. would be nice, it's really difficult to do in an ad. It takes too much time to engage someone with what you are trying to show them.
Better from an ad standpoint is the 'hook' that will get them to the Apple Store to check them out.
(Though I do keep thinking that there must be SOME way to emphasize the OS and apps!)

The brilliance of the I'm a Mac, I'm a PC ads is they deliver ONE message per spot and they appeal to different people. Some people won't care a wit about the 'make your own photo book' one and others won't care about the endorsement from PC mag but the EXTRA bonus brilliance is even if you're at a bar and there's no sound and you see them come on (and easy to spot - 2 guys, 1 white soundstage), it REINFORCES that there's ONE MORE Mac advantage over the PC even if you can't hear a word ... and now, playing over a year, every ad - in fast forward, silent, a glimpse, any two guys in a white room - it associates in your brain - MACS are better than PC's because ...

Hmmpf. the PC World article was referring to a Mac Book Pro (MBP) not a plain Macbook (MB) the MBP is faster depending on configuration than the MB so for those of you noticing slower speeds and such this might explain a few things at least with reference to the original PC World article. From my fast reading of the article the MBP was pretty high end not the standard config. Anyway, yeah usability count for a lot more than speed sometimes. I have a Mac Mini at home and have been a whole lot more productive than my old windows based PC that had better specs. This also varies with experience and computing needs. At work I use a PC and wish I could port some of the programs over from my Mac to my PC (back to that productive thing) For example, Curio would help me with some of my projects (I like to draw thing out when I'm thinking) and there are so many Mac journaling software that would help me write down my thoughts/notes. Skitch would help with screen shots and annotations that I have to create regularly and send to my colleagues all the time (Jing just does not work the same). I could go on and on...

Tiger runs faster on a MacBook also. Leopard is Apple's Vista

the different ads make sense. They are targeted to different people. this one in particular is for those who think they have to use windows no matter what. I know that a lot of older non-tech savvy people feel that way.

Get real! I can build a PC on Newegg for about $1000 that will smoke the Mac mini and iMac (Glossy iCrap). Give me a little more and I will smoke the overpriced Mac Pro.