Stevenson Fails 'Report Card' on Mac Ads

Seth Stevenson writes a column for Salon called the "Ad Report Card," where he rates the effectiveness of advertising based on his own extemporaneous criteria. Sometimes it's the concept , sometimes execution, and sometimes he just likes ads because they are entertaining. After watching Apple's new Get a Mac ads, however, he complained:

"They are conceptually brilliant, beautifully executed, and highly entertaining. But they don't make me want to buy a Mac."

Advertising isn't supposed to make you think you want to buy the product; it is designed to create awareness and results. That subtle difference is something an ad critic should understand, so Stevenson fails the grade.

Apple's Legendary Advertising

Apple has long been recognized for its advertising savvy. One of the most famous commercials of all time is the 1984 ad introducing the Macintosh. Not every Mac ad was well received, but they got attention and made people talk and think about the product.

That's what effective advertising aspires to do. The most successful campaigns reach many times the audience who actually see it first hand, by getting people to talk about ad, and even better, the product. Positive word of mouth is far more effective than direct advertising, because people are more likely to trust a real person with whom they are speaking than a model playing one on TV.

Good ads get people to talk. Great ads generate parody. Apple's ads have frequently featured their complex products with such clear simplicity that the idea and the style behind them are often spoofed on shows like Saturday Night Live, or on the web. Apple's slick iPod ads resulted in Conan O'Brien producing priceless free advertising for Apple just for comic effect.

How to Advertise the Competition

Of course, generating bad word of mouth is worse than no advertising at all. Imagine spending millions of dollars on a message so transparent that it accomplishes the opposite of its intended goal.

Some hated Apple's 2002 Switchers ad campaign and lampooned it, or described it as a failure because they didn't see any immediate switching happening. The ads portrayed regular people talking about their experiences in moving to the Mac. Some were geeky; some were flighty; all were photographically interesting as they squirmed in front of a camera in an impossibly white room talking about their travails on the PC, and how much happier they are now with a Mac.

The set may have been fake, but the switchers were all real. One of the Switchers, who talked in her ad about how she didn't need any training on her new Mac, ended up coming to me for training. In all fairness, she did win the training session in a free promotion, and I'm really a good trainer.

Switchers not only got high ratings within the ad industry, but defined a style that generated a lot of imitation and actually coined a term in the public consciousness. People describe themselves as Switchers, or talk about considering to Switch. In doing so, they subconsciously think about Apple's simple campaign featuring real people who are happy to have Switched themselves.

Shortly after the Switchers ad campaign started, Microsoft posted a derivative ad on their website entitled Confessions of a Mac to PC convert, with the story of a professional looking business woman who wrote:

"Yes, it's true. I like the Microsoft Windows XP operating system enough to change my whole computing world around. [...] Windows XP gives me more choices and flexibility and better compatibility with the rest of the computing world."

It turned out that Microsoft's "Convert" was a stock photography model, and her adspeak was written by a freelance writer. When the sham convert was exposed on Slashdot, Microsoft yanked the ad and killed the copycat campaign, but not before it generated more free publicity for Apple. Oops!

The New Switchers

Switchers didn't talk about Microsoft, and neither does the Get a Mac campaign. Instead, it presents a sharp young Mac speaking with a befuddled PC, who struggles with various issues such as viruses, crashing, and general complexity.

In his Salon Ad Report Card, Stevenson called the Get a Mac ads "mean-spirited." He doesn't like the actor playing the Mac, Justin Long, calling him a "smug little twit," but loves the PC, played by the Daily Show's resident expert John Hodgman. He characterizes the ad as a "cool kid versus nerd" battle:

"The ads pose a seemingly obvious question—would you rather be the laid-back young dude or the portly old dweeb?—but I found myself consistently giving the "wrong" answer: I'd much sooner associate myself with Hodgman than with Long."

But Stevenson just doesn't get it; that's not the implied question at all. Viewers aren't being told to side with one of the two characters. Instead, they are being shown, by both characters, what a hassle it is to be stuck in a suit as a PC when they could be relaxing in a T-shirt and jeans as a Mac.

The ads are sympathetic to the weary plight of PC users, not "mean-spirited." Stevenson also takes issue with the premise of the "Out of the Box" spot, saying:

[The ad] "suggests that PCs require tons of attention and alteration when you first fire them up. But I bought a new ThinkPad notebook just a few months ago, and it ran on all cylinders pretty much straight out of the gate. Why insult my intelligence by telling me something that I know isn't true?

Stevenson apparently blacked out the time he spent removing all the adware for online services, the third party crap Lenovo installs on top of Windows, and the incessant nagging of his new Windows XP install.

It looks like you need to buy Virus Protection... Now reboot! Now install these critical updates, like our sneaky WGA spyware, which lets us verify you aren't running a stolen version of Windows, you untrustworthy cad!

Or perhaps Stevenson, as the writer of ad report cards, likes all that in your face advertising, and left it all installed on his ThinkPad so he can enjoy the "choices and flexibility of the rest of the computing world."

Or perhaps he's just trying to play the Microsoft shill because he wants to be counterculture cool, and nothing is cooler in San Francisco than dealing with crappy junk, whether it's a dumpy old bicycle, a beat up Vespa, or furniture found on the street. Sorry Stevenson, but you can't be an SF elitist-poor neohippy if you think a wheeled carry-on suitcase is cooler than a backpack.

The Slow Switch

Clearly, Apple wants people to buy Macs. Prior to buying a Mac however, people have to think about the Mac as an option. That step of the decision chain, familiar to professional marketers, is lost upon junior ad critics who think advertising is all about making people rush to get a product.

Watching a beer commercial might make me want to run to the fridge and grab a drink, but unless that brand of beer sticks in my head until I find myself in the store with an opportunity to buy it, the initial impulse did nothing for the advertiser. Nobody is going to watch a TV ad for a Mac and then run to the store and buy one, but if it invokes curiosity and gets people talking, it's done its job perfectly.