The way I gauge the effectiveness of the laptop hunter commercials is that they are very effective for Microsoft's target audience.
Those who never venture much past the browser.
Those who would drive 5 miles back home because they forgot their McDonalds coupons.
Those new to computers that rely on the retail salesperson at Best Buy.
And of course those who spend their online time trolling Apple tech sites.
None of these would appreciate the value of a Mac. Few of them would ever be targeted by Apple. The rest of the people who viewed these ads probably didn't see them effective. I had to laugh at the one who said she was a video professional and proceeded to pick a worst choice over the better choice; the Mac when it comes to easily editing video. Actually all the hunters, IMO, were lame on the reasons for their choice.
Apple, with billions in the bank, is doing just fine in their targeted audience. I'm guessing, they don't advertise to increase overall market share and are quite content with the profit margins they make in their global market.
Microsoft pundits would like to believe Apple's fortunes against MS were due to the ad campaign, thus living in the usual state of denial that Apple makes superior stuff.
Secondly, the fact that internally MS people are putting "I'm a PC" stickers on their machines means that MS ads are just corporate breast beating and such ads never make for effective campaigns with customers.
Except that MS didn't make mistake - when add was launched, price was as stated in the add.
Correct. However the commercial ran after the Mac prices had changed so SOMEONE made a mistake. Perhaps it was the agency, I don't know. It's a Microsoft ad. They carry the can.
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And simple fact that Apple found it important to make MS change their add makes it effective.
Why? I thought the point of the commercials was to try and sell more Windows PCs ... not to upset a couple of Apple executives.
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Telling some clueless parents that their kids can do their study related work on cheaper PC notebook instead of desirable but expensive Mac can be effective, specially in this economy.
You missed my point. Not only were the ads trying to steer people away from buying a Mac they also seemed to encourage punters to buy PCs at a much lower price than the original budget. I am sure that HP would rather sell you a $1000 PC than a $700 one.
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I personally believe some results are achieved, maybe not huge but then again, we are talking about handful of very cheap and short adds.
They may be cheap to make but they are not cheap to air on national TV. BTW I don't think the "I'm a PC" ads, shot all around the world and featuring celebs would be that cheap to make. Seinfeld didn't come cheap either!
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I don't think MS has spend $300M on those adds - in fact, I believe majority of that budget will go into Windows 7 adds.
Yep that's what you think... but you don't know! The NYT article states that Microsoft spent over $300 million on TV in 2008 and 2009. From what I can gather those figures are likely only for North America. I am in the UK and the "I'm a PC" ads were rotated pretty heavily here. The campaigns responding to Apple could have cost even more than 300 million. We will have to rely on teckstud as he appears to be the only one who knows the real figures.
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How did you get to those numbers? Of course Apple makes more money for selling someone Mac with OSX than MS selling someone new copy of Windows, but then again it costs almost nothing to make new copy of Windows (as in to print DVD and put it in box) compared to making new computer. Additionally Windows is not the only product MS is selling.
The Mac's ASP and the cost of a Windows OEM license are estimates via Google. If you know some more accurate figures let me know.
Apple wants you to buy a Mac and Microsoft doesn't. This has nothing to do with boxed OS software. The simple point being that for for every Mac convert, Apple can earn $1000plus in earnings and hundreds of dollars in profits. For every punter that Microsoft can "save" from Apple's evil clutches they make just tens of dollars.
Steve Ballmer said it himself. 'Apple's gains are only a rounding error.' In a way, he is actually right so that makes it doubly curious that he is spending many millions of dollars targeting Apple.
ms's adds are moronic in that they turn their focus on apple being expensive, thus implying that they are great but expensive since they cant pinpoint any other thing in their ads but their pricy equipment, thus equating apple with pricy greatness. Only morons would do that, help an opponent become even more reputable whilst attacking them. Because the next step will be from the consumer: "I know apple are great, and they are not that expensive", which were my initial thoughts when I jumped the ms crazy sinking ship three years ago. They are emphasizing this all the more.
Of course the "analyst" misses that important point, as most analysts are keen to.
Another thing is that via their ads they stoop to promote a pc not based on their os, or even their own hardware, not even based on other people's hardware and their os, but based on other people's hardware and their os being cheapos...what a strategy...
As for the pirates, if MS where to chase the pirates (and in corporate environments ms chase "pirates" and suck their clients bloods out) they they wouldn't be able to charge $400 for effing windows vista ultimate, with the ultimate refering to the precious add ons they would release (these add ons boiling down to dreamscene : the ability to stick a loop of clip playing in the background....)
Except that MS didn't make mistake - when add was launched, price was as stated in the add. And simple fact that Apple found it important to make MS change their add makes it effective.
I think this point has been over-hyped to death. I actually don't think it means anything at all.
If Ford were running a commercial claiming better gas mileage than a Honda, but the ad was based on last year's model Honda, you can bet that Honda's lawyers would call and tell them to change it or pull it.
If Southwest was running ads saying they had the most flights to Florida and Jet Blue added a couple of flights so they were even or exceeded Southwest's number, Jet Blue's lawyers would make exactly the same call.
If Weight Watchers was running adds saying that Lean Cuisine's meals all had 200 calories more than Weight Watchers' meals and Lean Cuisine coincidentally had new meals hit the stores a month later (meals that they had been working on for months) that were 10 calories lower, Lean Cuisine's lawyers would call Weight Watchers and tell them to stop saying they had 200 calories less, that Lean Cuisine had reduced their calories and the adds were no longer accurate.
No company's marketing and legal departments are, on general principle, going to allow a competitor to get away with making a factual claim about their product that is less than 100% accurate. This isn't something unique to Apple or Microsoft or any other company. That's just how businesses operate.
So, to point to this as a measure of the ad's (or ads') effectiveness simply doesn't hold water. At the moment your ad is no longer 100% accurate on factual claims regarding a competitor, you're going to, at the very least, get a call from their lawyers. Even if your ad campaign were actually driving business to your competitor, they would still call you on any points of fact about their product that were not completely accurate.
So, all this really means is that Microsoft's ad was no longer accurate and Apple legal called them and pointed that out. Attempts to read significance into it beyond that are just that.
This guy must be a major Apple fanboy. The unbiased NY Times article states that the latest Microsoft ads have been very effective when you consider what they've spent vs Apple. Apple even lowered the Mac prices in responce to MS ads and had their lawyer contact MS to stop the ads. That's not effective?
This guy Wolf is speaking out of his A$&!
Here is the article ( I posted it for you all previously on Monday):
The fact is Apple have had so far a very good year in terms of revenue/profit and MS had a declining year compared to last years figures. The P&L tells you the story of each company's performance, not newspapers mate.
btw: The analyst 'AppleFan' boy was using actual factual data to provide feedback on both companies performance, you may not like his style of writing, but the same figures have been used by other analysts.
My colleagues stated a true simple fact, YOU NEVER MENTION YOUR COMPETITION IN an AD, MASSIVE NO NO. Apple have been very clever to target the PC and not MS directly. You may not like Apple, but Kudos to them for very clever ads.
Another example of Apple INNOVATION vs. MS RECYCLING!
This guy must be a major Apple fanboy. The unbiased NY Times article states that the latest Microsoft ads have been very effective when you consider what they've spent vs Apple. Apple even lowered the Mac prices in responce to MS ads and had their lawyer contact MS to stop the ads. That's not effective?
This guy Wolf is speaking out of his A$&!
Here is the article ( I posted it for you all previously on Monday):
I think this point has been over-hyped to death. I actually don't think it means anything at all.
If Ford were running a commercial claiming better gas mileage than a Honda, but the ad was based on last year's model Honda, you can bet that Honda's lawyers would call and tell them to change it or pull it.
If Southwest was running ads saying they had the most flights to Florida and Jet Blue added a couple of flights so they were even or exceeded Southwest's number, Jet Blue's lawyers would make exactly the same call.
If Weight Watchers was running adds saying that Lean Cuisine's meals all had 200 calories more than Weight Watchers' meals and Lean Cuisine coincidentally had new meals hit the stores a month later (meals that they had been working on for months) that were 10 calories lower, Lean Cuisine's lawyers would call Weight Watchers and tell them to stop saying they had 200 calories less, that Lean Cuisine had reduced their calories and the adds were no longer accurate.
No company's marketing and legal departments are, on general principle, going to allow a competitor to get away with making a factual claim about their product that is less than 100% accurate. This isn't something unique to Apple or Microsoft or any other company. That's just how businesses operate.
So, to point to this as a measure of the ad's (or ads') effectiveness simply doesn't hold water. At the moment your ad is no longer 100% accurate on factual claims regarding a competitor, you're going to, at the very least, get a call from their lawyers. Even if your ad campaign were actually driving business to your competitor, they would still call you on any points of fact about their product that were not completely accurate.
So, all this really means is that Microsoft's ad was no longer accurate and Apple legal called them and pointed that out. Attempts to read significance into it beyond that are just that.
In other words that money Microsoft wasted should have been use to make Windows 7 better and sell it for $29!
i work with someone who is producing images for phones that uses windows mobile.
all he is provided from microsoft are low-res screen grabs. apparently, the agency guy who is in contact with microsoft can't even get them to provide him with a proper hi-res image. this has happened at least 5 times that i am aware of. it's maddening. it really shows a lack of concern for their end product, and thus, a lack of concern for their customer base.
all the pc trolls should be jumping on windows to get their shit together.
i also had an opportunity to work for apple late last year. super high standards. quality control begins when you sit down at your desk.
Well said.
Your comments also remind me of what it was like to work with PC vs Mac magazines when placing media orders. Back in the day you often worked with one editorial group for multiple platforms. It was a mess and the attention to detail on the non-mac side was equally appalling.
I'm sure you mean that only some consumers have chosen Mac for this reason.
Most people I know personally who've chosen Apple products have done so because they're 'cool', fashionable or just good-looking; few care about the actual usability or merits of the OS etc.
OT, I'd love to know what percentage of MS Windows running on Apple hardware was properly licensed.
Oh, pah-leeze!
MANY of us Mac users have licensed copy of Windows installed, either one we bought personally, or one that was provided under our companies licensing agreement. We are forced to continue to use Windows on a daily basis for proprietary apps that were never ported or written for OS X.
VMware Fusion and Parallels BOTH require entering a license key, then placing a call, or going online, to MS tech support (at least once) to authenticate your copy.
What are you talking about? which part of my post is so fanciful in your opinion? I've no problem with you having a different opinion, but 'pah-leez' at least make sense.
"Hi, I'm a young, hip, modern woman looking for a laptop for under $100. I'd like to have a Mac but I'm just not special enough for them. Hey look, I found this one on the bottom shelf at my local Walmart, the manual is in Chinese, but it's exactly what I'm looking for. Congratulations! It's a PC!"
I suggest you learn how to write if you ever want to be taken seriously.
Correct . I will try .
I feel all these ads placed by MSFT are a misdirection to force our eyes away from their unfair monopoly. These ADS increased business for all laptop vendors. And MSFT sells SW to both sides of the fence. MSFT needs apple to exist.
So Balmer is a genius in that no matter what they do they make sales and create a fake p/c argument. No one can be as stupid as steve acts .No one . So many here to me are like sheep, bleating away at every bullshIt MSFT missive. I do not ever believe one word for msft ever. One day the sheep and the sec will look up .
Thanks i never went to college and kinda ramble on sometimes . I see that MSFT is like the CIA IN THAT no matter what they say it a lie .
Not necessarily a lie, just a horrible misprepresentation of what should constitute human interaction with technology. Meaning, "they have no taste", which is really the basis for all of their woes and lousy image today.
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That's not true. Some of us are ALL THREE. (you left out charming, intelligent, rich, and sexy, though).
I think INTELLIGENT ranks the highest.
How do you pick out the PC owners on a website? they misspell words.
Those who never venture much past the browser.
Those who would drive 5 miles back home because they forgot their McDonalds coupons.
Those new to computers that rely on the retail salesperson at Best Buy.
And of course those who spend their online time trolling Apple tech sites.
None of these would appreciate the value of a Mac. Few of them would ever be targeted by Apple. The rest of the people who viewed these ads probably didn't see them effective. I had to laugh at the one who said she was a video professional and proceeded to pick a worst choice over the better choice; the Mac when it comes to easily editing video. Actually all the hunters, IMO, were lame on the reasons for their choice.
Apple, with billions in the bank, is doing just fine in their targeted audience. I'm guessing, they don't advertise to increase overall market share and are quite content with the profit margins they make in their global market.
Secondly, the fact that internally MS people are putting "I'm a PC" stickers on their machines means that MS ads are just corporate breast beating and such ads never make for effective campaigns with customers.
Except that MS didn't make mistake - when add was launched, price was as stated in the add.
Correct. However the commercial ran after the Mac prices had changed so SOMEONE made a mistake. Perhaps it was the agency, I don't know. It's a Microsoft ad. They carry the can.
And simple fact that Apple found it important to make MS change their add makes it effective.
Why? I thought the point of the commercials was to try and sell more Windows PCs ... not to upset a couple of Apple executives.
Telling some clueless parents that their kids can do their study related work on cheaper PC notebook instead of desirable but expensive Mac can be effective, specially in this economy.
You missed my point. Not only were the ads trying to steer people away from buying a Mac they also seemed to encourage punters to buy PCs at a much lower price than the original budget. I am sure that HP would rather sell you a $1000 PC than a $700 one.
I personally believe some results are achieved, maybe not huge but then again, we are talking about handful of very cheap and short adds.
They may be cheap to make but they are not cheap to air on national TV. BTW I don't think the "I'm a PC" ads, shot all around the world and featuring celebs would be that cheap to make. Seinfeld didn't come cheap either!
I don't think MS has spend $300M on those adds - in fact, I believe majority of that budget will go into Windows 7 adds.
Yep that's what you think... but you don't know! The NYT article states that Microsoft spent over $300 million on TV in 2008 and 2009. From what I can gather those figures are likely only for North America. I am in the UK and the "I'm a PC" ads were rotated pretty heavily here. The campaigns responding to Apple could have cost even more than 300 million. We will have to rely on teckstud as he appears to be the only one who knows the real figures.
How did you get to those numbers? Of course Apple makes more money for selling someone Mac with OSX than MS selling someone new copy of Windows, but then again it costs almost nothing to make new copy of Windows (as in to print DVD and put it in box) compared to making new computer. Additionally Windows is not the only product MS is selling.
The Mac's ASP and the cost of a Windows OEM license are estimates via Google. If you know some more accurate figures let me know.
Apple wants you to buy a Mac and Microsoft doesn't. This has nothing to do with boxed OS software. The simple point being that for for every Mac convert, Apple can earn $1000plus in earnings and hundreds of dollars in profits. For every punter that Microsoft can "save" from Apple's evil clutches they make just tens of dollars.
Steve Ballmer said it himself. 'Apple's gains are only a rounding error.' In a way, he is actually right so that makes it doubly curious that he is spending many millions of dollars targeting Apple.
Of course the "analyst" misses that important point, as most analysts are keen to.
Another thing is that via their ads they stoop to promote a pc not based on their os, or even their own hardware, not even based on other people's hardware and their os, but based on other people's hardware and their os being cheapos...what a strategy...
As for the pirates, if MS where to chase the pirates (and in corporate environments ms chase "pirates" and suck their clients bloods out) they they wouldn't be able to charge $400 for effing windows vista ultimate, with the ultimate refering to the precious add ons they would release (these add ons boiling down to dreamscene : the ability to stick a loop of clip playing in the background....)
Except that MS didn't make mistake - when add was launched, price was as stated in the add. And simple fact that Apple found it important to make MS change their add makes it effective.
I think this point has been over-hyped to death. I actually don't think it means anything at all.
If Ford were running a commercial claiming better gas mileage than a Honda, but the ad was based on last year's model Honda, you can bet that Honda's lawyers would call and tell them to change it or pull it.
If Southwest was running ads saying they had the most flights to Florida and Jet Blue added a couple of flights so they were even or exceeded Southwest's number, Jet Blue's lawyers would make exactly the same call.
If Weight Watchers was running adds saying that Lean Cuisine's meals all had 200 calories more than Weight Watchers' meals and Lean Cuisine coincidentally had new meals hit the stores a month later (meals that they had been working on for months) that were 10 calories lower, Lean Cuisine's lawyers would call Weight Watchers and tell them to stop saying they had 200 calories less, that Lean Cuisine had reduced their calories and the adds were no longer accurate.
No company's marketing and legal departments are, on general principle, going to allow a competitor to get away with making a factual claim about their product that is less than 100% accurate. This isn't something unique to Apple or Microsoft or any other company. That's just how businesses operate.
So, to point to this as a measure of the ad's (or ads') effectiveness simply doesn't hold water. At the moment your ad is no longer 100% accurate on factual claims regarding a competitor, you're going to, at the very least, get a call from their lawyers. Even if your ad campaign were actually driving business to your competitor, they would still call you on any points of fact about their product that were not completely accurate.
So, all this really means is that Microsoft's ad was no longer accurate and Apple legal called them and pointed that out. Attempts to read significance into it beyond that are just that.
This guy must be a major Apple fanboy. The unbiased NY Times article states that the latest Microsoft ads have been very effective when you consider what they've spent vs Apple. Apple even lowered the Mac prices in responce to MS ads and had their lawyer contact MS to stop the ads. That's not effective?
This guy Wolf is speaking out of his A$&!
Here is the article ( I posted it for you all previously on Monday):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/bu...edia/30ad.html
The fact is Apple have had so far a very good year in terms of revenue/profit and MS had a declining year compared to last years figures. The P&L tells you the story of each company's performance, not newspapers mate.
btw: The analyst 'AppleFan' boy was using actual factual data to provide feedback on both companies performance, you may not like his style of writing, but the same figures have been used by other analysts.
My colleagues stated a true simple fact, YOU NEVER MENTION YOUR COMPETITION IN an AD, MASSIVE NO NO. Apple have been very clever to target the PC and not MS directly. You may not like Apple, but Kudos to them for very clever ads.
Another example of Apple INNOVATION vs. MS RECYCLING!
This guy must be a major Apple fanboy. The unbiased NY Times article states that the latest Microsoft ads have been very effective when you consider what they've spent vs Apple. Apple even lowered the Mac prices in responce to MS ads and had their lawyer contact MS to stop the ads. That's not effective?
This guy Wolf is speaking out of his A$&!
Here is the article ( I posted it for you all previously on Monday):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/bu...edia/30ad.html
Wow you must be a Microsoft fanboy if you got the link to the ad. All I say is all good things come to an end.
I think this point has been over-hyped to death. I actually don't think it means anything at all.
If Ford were running a commercial claiming better gas mileage than a Honda, but the ad was based on last year's model Honda, you can bet that Honda's lawyers would call and tell them to change it or pull it.
If Southwest was running ads saying they had the most flights to Florida and Jet Blue added a couple of flights so they were even or exceeded Southwest's number, Jet Blue's lawyers would make exactly the same call.
If Weight Watchers was running adds saying that Lean Cuisine's meals all had 200 calories more than Weight Watchers' meals and Lean Cuisine coincidentally had new meals hit the stores a month later (meals that they had been working on for months) that were 10 calories lower, Lean Cuisine's lawyers would call Weight Watchers and tell them to stop saying they had 200 calories less, that Lean Cuisine had reduced their calories and the adds were no longer accurate.
No company's marketing and legal departments are, on general principle, going to allow a competitor to get away with making a factual claim about their product that is less than 100% accurate. This isn't something unique to Apple or Microsoft or any other company. That's just how businesses operate.
So, to point to this as a measure of the ad's (or ads') effectiveness simply doesn't hold water. At the moment your ad is no longer 100% accurate on factual claims regarding a competitor, you're going to, at the very least, get a call from their lawyers. Even if your ad campaign were actually driving business to your competitor, they would still call you on any points of fact about their product that were not completely accurate.
So, all this really means is that Microsoft's ad was no longer accurate and Apple legal called them and pointed that out. Attempts to read significance into it beyond that are just that.
In other words that money Microsoft wasted should have been use to make Windows 7 better and sell it for $29!
i just had to relay this story:
i work with someone who is producing images for phones that uses windows mobile.
all he is provided from microsoft are low-res screen grabs. apparently, the agency guy who is in contact with microsoft can't even get them to provide him with a proper hi-res image. this has happened at least 5 times that i am aware of. it's maddening. it really shows a lack of concern for their end product, and thus, a lack of concern for their customer base.
all the pc trolls should be jumping on windows to get their shit together.
i also had an opportunity to work for apple late last year. super high standards. quality control begins when you sit down at your desk.
Well said.
Your comments also remind me of what it was like to work with PC vs Mac magazines when placing media orders. Back in the day you often worked with one editorial group for multiple platforms. It was a mess and the attention to detail on the non-mac side was equally appalling.
I think INTELLIGENT ranks the highest.
How do you pick out the PC owners on a website? they misspell words.
I'm sure you mean that only some consumers have chosen Mac for this reason.
Most people I know personally who've chosen Apple products have done so because they're 'cool', fashionable or just good-looking; few care about the actual usability or merits of the OS etc.
OT, I'd love to know what percentage of MS Windows running on Apple hardware was properly licensed.
Oh, pah-leeze!
MANY of us Mac users have licensed copy of Windows installed, either one we bought personally, or one that was provided under our companies licensing agreement. We are forced to continue to use Windows on a daily basis for proprietary apps that were never ported or written for OS X.
VMware Fusion and Parallels BOTH require entering a license key, then placing a call, or going online, to MS tech support (at least once) to authenticate your copy.
Get real.
...Get real.
What are you talking about? which part of my post is so fanciful in your opinion? I've no problem with you having a different opinion, but 'pah-leez' at least make sense.
I suggest you learn how to write if you ever want to be taken seriously.
Correct . I will try .
I feel all these ads placed by MSFT are a misdirection to force our eyes away from their unfair monopoly. These ADS increased business for all laptop vendors. And MSFT sells SW to both sides of the fence. MSFT needs apple to exist.
So Balmer is a genius in that no matter what they do they make sales and create a fake p/c argument. No one can be as stupid as steve acts .No one . So many here to me are like sheep, bleating away at every bullshIt MSFT missive. I do not ever believe one word for msft ever. One day the sheep and the sec will look up .
just saying
peace
9
s'okay, bruce. I kinda like your animated style.
Thanks i never went to college and kinda ramble on sometimes . I see that MSFT is like the CIA IN THAT no matter what they say it a lie .
Thanks i never went to college and kinda ramble on sometimes .
I always figured it was just the effects of the methane.
Thanks i never went to college and kinda ramble on sometimes . I see that MSFT is like the CIA IN THAT no matter what they say it a lie .
Not necessarily a lie, just a horrible misprepresentation of what should constitute human interaction with technology. Meaning, "they have no taste", which is really the basis for all of their woes and lousy image today.
Microsoft's fight against Apple ads seen as waste of money... ...by apple fanatics like us.
true!
actually the ad campaign was successful in getting cheap PC buyers not to buy a Mac
Hey, at least the Dell Dude knows his weed. Lauren is on ecstasy.
Dell Dude - "Wow, man. Look at the lights!"
Lauren - "OMG, this super cheap WalMart PC is SO sexy!"
..............."No. Wait. This super shiney faucet is SO sexy!"
..............."No. No. Wait. This really funky trash can is SO sexy!"
..............."No. No. No. Wait. This $1.98 empty PC case is SO sexy!"