Contrived or not, people DO have a specific budget and DO want or need specific hardware features. The fact is, there are real life people in this situation.
Why is this news? Did anyone really think she was a real consumer?
It's not like the USA has any truth in advertising laws that would make this illegal or anything. Do people believe that the grainy films of "Mr. Schnieder" on the wiener commercials are real too? Or that the housewives on the Swiffer commercials are as well?
Head over to ZDNet to see the Windows zealots furiously defending Lauren's decision as if she were a REAL customer. It's frighteningly hilarious!
Bloggers forensically studied the advertisement in slow motion, pointing out that the shots of Lauren entering and leaving the store appear to have been shot all at once; the surrounding people walking past in both shots appear in the same place. This must mean, they conclude, that Lauren never entered the store looking for the $1000 17? notebook, and that the ad simply included a scene at ?the Mac store? to offer Apple some additional free advertising.
Of course, it doesn?t really matter if Lauren walked into the store and spent any length of time there. The entire ad was contrived by definition. Lauren wasn?t given money to find the ideal computer for her needs, she was given a specific budget and told to find a specific hardware feature that Apple does not carry.
Apple only sells one 17? notebook with a high quality, full resolution screen. No PC maker ships anything comparable to the MacBook Pro for under $1000. As the ad points out however, there are plenty of low quality, low resolution 17? screens available from PC makers trying to dangle low prices in front of consumers in the overcrowded, low differentiation market for low end, generic PCs that ship with Windows Vista.
Why would Microsoft?s production company waste its time following Lauren around the Apple Store with a camera, when they knew full well that the PC definition they?d cooked up wasn?t one of the three simple notebook family members Apple offers? And why would Lauren, a member of the Screen Actor?s Guild, waste her time acting out a role that she wasn?t even making union wages on?
Lauren may well have simply been looking for a free computer on Craigslist, and not intending to act out a fake role for Microsoft. After all, pretty much everyone in LA is in the SAG, just as everyone in San Francisco is a DJ. Nobody has uncovered Microsoft?s ad script telling Lauren to pretend to fruitlessly search among Apple?s notebook offerings for a period of time. The company didn?t need to do that; it merely wanted to create the suggestion that Lauren failed to find a specific combination of features because she ?wasn?t cool enough for a Mac,? and that Apple?s products are too elite and smart and customers should fear them with angry resentment.
It's fine to say that the ad is contrived, but a lot of the arguments used to shoot it down is all contrived, such as:
Quote:
Originally Posted by apostille
Lauren wasn’t given money to find the ideal computer for her needs, she was given a specific budget and told to find a specific hardware feature that Apple does not carry.
Poppycock. I don't know what hardware feature you are talking about, Apple carries a 17" model. It's just not a screen size they offer in a consumer notebook. To imply that Apple's 17" is really the machine that she needs is a bit much, chances are, probably not. Most people don't need the "pro" level performance, features and marketing, which leads to the pro level price.
Quote:
Apple only sells one 17” notebook with a high quality, full resolution screen. No PC maker ships anything comparable to the MacBook Pro for under $1000. As the ad points out however, there are plenty of low quality, low resolution 17“ screens available from PC makers
The screen looked pretty nice when I looked at the machine, definitely a lot nicer than I would expect for the price. It's a decent 100ppi screen, which is roughly the same pixel density as Apple's desktop monitor. Apple uses a 133ppi screen on their 17", which I don't think is for everyone. It's also a resolution that most Apple fans that talked about it said is too much, but now, it's convenient to say the opposite.
A big blind spot with the "full resolution" argument is that if it means a certain number of pixels, Apple doesn't offer their 15" with "full resolution", there are 15" notebooks out there that offer 1920 resolution as an option. Besides, using the term "full resolution" without being deliberately ironic makes people sound like marketing 'tards, because it's a term that doesn't really mean anything.
It really doesn't matter if it is faked or not. They didn't even try to convince us that she was ever actually INSIDE the Apple Store, and I really doubt Apple would've let them film inside the store.
Regardless, MS appears to have gotten wind of the criticism. The commercial aired again last night during NBC's Medium. The shot of Lauren entering the store has been removed. No matter what your arguments are for or against MS and their advertising techniques, they were concerned enough to change the commercial. Seems that MS has accepted that they were busted and they apparently agreed to some extent.
Contrived or not, people DO have a specific budget and DO want or need specific hardware features. The fact is, there are real life people in this situation.
Yep. happened in my house. I've always used Apple computers at home, school, and every place I've ever worked, going back longer than the Mac has even existed. I have my first ever PC in my house now (a new HP laptop), because Apple simply does not make the hardware that my wife wanted. She hates Windows almost as much as I do, but giving up the features she needed was not worth it to get the OS she preferred.
Comments
WTF?
Why is this news? Did anyone really think she was a real consumer?
It's not like the USA has any truth in advertising laws that would make this illegal or anything. Do people believe that the grainy films of "Mr. Schnieder" on the wiener commercials are real too? Or that the housewives on the Swiffer commercials are as well?
Head over to ZDNet to see the Windows zealots furiously defending Lauren's decision as if she were a REAL customer. It's frighteningly hilarious!
Of course, it doesn?t really matter if Lauren walked into the store and spent any length of time there. The entire ad was contrived by definition. Lauren wasn?t given money to find the ideal computer for her needs, she was given a specific budget and told to find a specific hardware feature that Apple does not carry.
Apple only sells one 17? notebook with a high quality, full resolution screen. No PC maker ships anything comparable to the MacBook Pro for under $1000. As the ad points out however, there are plenty of low quality, low resolution 17? screens available from PC makers trying to dangle low prices in front of consumers in the overcrowded, low differentiation market for low end, generic PCs that ship with Windows Vista.
Why would Microsoft?s production company waste its time following Lauren around the Apple Store with a camera, when they knew full well that the PC definition they?d cooked up wasn?t one of the three simple notebook family members Apple offers? And why would Lauren, a member of the Screen Actor?s Guild, waste her time acting out a role that she wasn?t even making union wages on?
Lauren may well have simply been looking for a free computer on Craigslist, and not intending to act out a fake role for Microsoft. After all, pretty much everyone in LA is in the SAG, just as everyone in San Francisco is a DJ. Nobody has uncovered Microsoft?s ad script telling Lauren to pretend to fruitlessly search among Apple?s notebook offerings for a period of time. The company didn?t need to do that; it merely wanted to create the suggestion that Lauren failed to find a specific combination of features because she ?wasn?t cool enough for a Mac,? and that Apple?s products are too elite and smart and customers should fear them with angry resentment.
Lauren wasn’t given money to find the ideal computer for her needs, she was given a specific budget and told to find a specific hardware feature that Apple does not carry.
Poppycock. I don't know what hardware feature you are talking about, Apple carries a 17" model. It's just not a screen size they offer in a consumer notebook. To imply that Apple's 17" is really the machine that she needs is a bit much, chances are, probably not. Most people don't need the "pro" level performance, features and marketing, which leads to the pro level price.
Apple only sells one 17” notebook with a high quality, full resolution screen. No PC maker ships anything comparable to the MacBook Pro for under $1000. As the ad points out however, there are plenty of low quality, low resolution 17“ screens available from PC makers
The screen looked pretty nice when I looked at the machine, definitely a lot nicer than I would expect for the price. It's a decent 100ppi screen, which is roughly the same pixel density as Apple's desktop monitor. Apple uses a 133ppi screen on their 17", which I don't think is for everyone. It's also a resolution that most Apple fans that talked about it said is too much, but now, it's convenient to say the opposite.
A big blind spot with the "full resolution" argument is that if it means a certain number of pixels, Apple doesn't offer their 15" with "full resolution", there are 15" notebooks out there that offer 1920 resolution as an option. Besides, using the term "full resolution" without being deliberately ironic makes people sound like marketing 'tards, because it's a term that doesn't really mean anything.
Regardless, MS appears to have gotten wind of the criticism. The commercial aired again last night during NBC's Medium. The shot of Lauren entering the store has been removed. No matter what your arguments are for or against MS and their advertising techniques, they were concerned enough to change the commercial. Seems that MS has accepted that they were busted and they apparently agreed to some extent.
Contrived or not, people DO have a specific budget and DO want or need specific hardware features. The fact is, there are real life people in this situation.
Yep. happened in my house. I've always used Apple computers at home, school, and every place I've ever worked, going back longer than the Mac has even existed. I have my first ever PC in my house now (a new HP laptop), because Apple simply does not make the hardware that my wife wanted. She hates Windows almost as much as I do, but giving up the features she needed was not worth it to get the OS she preferred.