Comments on: I’m a PC too… touché

By: cairnwalker

cairnwalker — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:45:41 +0000

Where is the link to the remix in its full glory?

By: You Want the Truth? You Can’t Handle the Truth! — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:49:49 +0000

[...] Promoting the Mac Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ Campaign Keeps Getting Stranger (With Videos I’m a PC too… touché. “I don’t care about the fact that the ads themselves were produced on Macs,” the writer [...]

By: bellview

bellview — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:32:01 +0000

I really hate that I didn’t think of that … :/

By: Peter C

Peter C — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:48:58 +0000

Although it has 90% of the market, Microsoft has a problem with its Windows boxes being “stereotyped” and in defence tries to counter this by using a stereotypical label for a range of individual human beings. Weird.

While Apple makes machines that seem almost human and reflects this in its advertising by having them appear as people, Microsoft treats people like machines and reflects this in its advertising.

Apple tries to imbue its Mac’s with a personality as individual as the user, while Microsoft focuses on user conformity. In Microsoft’s ad’s the PC character complains that he’s been made into a stereotype and then a whole string of different people all proclaim that they’re tarred with the same stereotypical brush. No matter who they are or what they do, they are all reduced to being “PC’s”. So who is stereotyping whom?

Microsoft can’t even copy advertising well.

By: LuisDias

LuisDias — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:30:31 +0000

I disagree with Daniel. I really do think that these ads by Microsoft aren't shitty. I think they might work in the sense that they make two things very well: - It connects "PC" with windows. Dan says this is bad because windows is wasting 300 million bucks to promote a thing that they don't own. Well, you got it all wrong. They are doing exactly the opposite. They are entrenching (or defending) the notion that PCs are Microsoft's territory. There are "other things" not mentioned that aren't pc's (macs), but if you want just a PC, then it's MS. It's clever. - It clearly says that Apple's ad is bad because it stereotypes. And while Apple's ads do stereotype, they do it to computers (PCs), but MS ad clearly states that Apple stereotypes computer users. People here are right pointing out the difference, but wrong pointing out Microsoft's idiocy on this. It's full of purpose and malice. They are subliminally getting the audience to question Apple's elitist and dismissive attitude towards the "dumb masses" that opt to buy PCs. And lastly, it's full of "joy" and upbeat attitude.

By: Peter C

Peter C — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:49:32 +0000

Here’s another blast from the past.

Given Deepak Chopra’s comment in the latest ad, “We are all a PC, inseparably one”, combined with the mass-cloning of individual identities: I can’t help thinking of Apple’s ad for its 1984 introduction of the first Macintosh, especially the dictator’s speech right at the end where he says, “We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. …We will bury [our enemies] …with their own confusion”.

Under the circumstances rather prescient I think. All the Steve Ballmer PC look-alikes are kinda cute too. There’s that life imitating art thing again.
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

By: danielmramos

danielmramos — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:47:39 +0000

I really have trouble understanding exactly what m$ is trying to get at with these ads. All, or any, of those people that are stating that they are PCs could be using Macintoshes. It is like they made a series of ads that proves absolutely nothing other than that the people aren’t using mainframe or minicomputers. Wait a minute! Might it be that these ads are actually targeted at mainframe and minicomputer users? Whoa, this would mean that the guys over at m$ are in a freaking time warp that has them stuck back in the 1980s. I submit evidence that their last Gates/Seinfeld add showed Gates doing the robot dance. Interesting, maybe m$ plans to make these ads in the present, transport them into the past, and win the fight by altering the time line. Devious! ;-)

By: relayer

relayer — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:51:29 +0000

To benjamintm:

Microsoft’s Windows isn’t populism any more than AT&T’s phones were back in the 50’s and 60’s. Monopolies by their very definition don’t get to represent the “interest” of the ordinary people. Quite the contrary.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:03:56 +0000

Any user of Windows hates it at some level. That is what Apple’s ads play to: hey, you don’t have to hate your computer. They’re addressing how people really feel. There is no broad personal identification with Windows for Microsoft to play to. These ads are attempting to manufacture that sentiment. Apple’s ads may be smug, but they’re leveraging how people really feel. Microsoft’s ads are anything but populist; they’re fascist propaganda if anything, because they’re telling you how you should feel.

By: lowededwookie

lowededwookie — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:04:23 +0000

The term PC is pretty broad really. The fact it means “Personal Computer” pretty much makes Amiga, Mac, iPhone, Windows Mobile, etc all PCs. The idea that Windows is PC is discriminatory in much the same way calling white people Humans is while completely disregarding the other colours.

PCs aren’t boring because some of them run Mac OS X.