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Anti-Vista Marketing at Apple Stores

Did you also have a problem when 7-Up started calling itself the "Un-cola" back in the 1970's? The implication being that it was actually better than regular cola without any empirical proof. Think of all the poor uneducated consumers believing that clear lemon-lime soda was good yet also the exact opposite of dark colored cola flavored drinks. The implication that dark cola drinks were bad in comparison pissed off literally dozens of people. 7-Up vs. Cola, Good vs. Evil. The young Pepsi and Coke drinkers were so confused by the negative "Un-cola" marketing campaign they started "Doin' the Dew". Then where did all this leave the remaining outsiders we call the Dr. Pepper crowd? They had to do something to preserve a small shred a dignity. New slogan! But alas, "Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?" destroyed the self-esteem of otherwise happy cola drinkers.

Oh sorry... I got sidetracked entertaining myself with nonsense... now back to the serious topic... about how prejudice I must be for going "Beyond Vista". (I still can't believe we're seriously debating the use of the word prejudice in this context.)

Maxx Power said:
It doesn't matter if you tried the product, if I had interactions with black people and use that as an excuse to say they are "this" or "that" and justify it using my so called interactions with them, that's an unfair generalization.
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Bob Smith screwed you over. You claim he owes you money but you can't really prove it since it's your word against his. He denies it and he also happens to be black. Are you prejudiced against all blacks by telling people Bob is a thief? Of course not. Then are you prejudiced against Bob by telling people Bob is a thief?

You've tried Vista. You think it sucks but you can't prove it since you're only using your own experiences. Are you prejudiced against Vista by telling people Vista sucks?

Prejudice has nothing to do with anything in the context of this ad campaign.

And "Go Beyond Vista" has got to be one the most benign, kitty-cat, anti-competitor slogans I've ever heard.
 
"GO BEYOND" MS people who just have to cry foul that Apple is a better machine for almost everyone who has tried it.

Rascist? just discerning.
 
sparky672 said:
Did you also have a problem when 7-Up started calling itself the "Un-cola" back in the 1970's? The implication being that it was actually better than regular cola without any empirical proof. Think of all the poor uneducated consumers believing that clear lemon-lime soda was good yet also the exact opposite of dark colored cola flavored drinks. The implication that dark cola drinks were bad in comparison pissed off literally dozens of people. 7-Up vs. Cola, Good vs. Evil. The young Pepsi and Coke drinkers were so confused by the negative "Un-cola" marketing campaign they started "Doin' the Dew". Then where did all this leave the remaining outsiders we call the Dr. Pepper crowd? They had to do something to preserve a small shred a dignity. New slogan! But alas, "Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?" destroyed the self-esteem of otherwise happy cola drinkers.

Oh sorry... I got sidetracked entertaining myself with nonsense... now back to the serious topic... about how prejudice I must be for going "Beyond Vista". (I still can't believe we're seriously debating the use of the word prejudice in this context.)



Bob Smith screwed you over. You claim he owes you money but you can't really prove it since it's your word against his. He denies it and he also happens to be black. Are you prejudiced against all blacks by telling people Bob is a thief? Of course not. Then are you prejudiced against Bob by telling people Bob is a thief?

You've tried Vista. You think it sucks but you can't prove it since you're only using your own experiences. Are you prejudiced against Vista by telling people Vista sucks?

Prejudice has nothing to do with anything in the context of this ad campaign.

And "Go Beyond Vista" has got to be one the most benign, kitty-cat, anti-competitor slogans I've ever heard.
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Frankly, there are too many Mac fanatics who just make the assumption that anything MS is bad. That's the wrong attitude, and it is prejudicial. If apple pushes for that kind of an image by supporting that attitude in any way, that's prejudice.

PS. Bob wouldn't be a thief, but if I can't actually prove he stole anything, then it would be a plain lie.
 
Maxx Power said:
Frankly, there are too many Mac fanatics who just make the assumption that anything MS is bad.
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And they wouldn't be basing that assumption on any real experience with MS products now would they? :rolleyes: (very heavy sarcasm) That certainly would be very prejudicial of them to just assume Windows is crap without trying it first.

Maxx Power said:
PS. Bob wouldn't be a thief, but if I can't actually prove he stole anything, then it would be a plain lie.
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Your statement is not well conceived or even logical. He was your buddy. You sold him something for cash. He took the merchandise and said he'd pay you later. He never paid you and claims he knows nothing of the item. No one witnessed your transaction with him except for the two of you. Bob took your merchandise, you never got paid, you're not lying and you still can't prove anything.
 
I actually just used the retail version of Vista at Best Buy a few hours ago for the first time.

It was like Windows XP, but glassy, and it seemed to have a lot of newfangled looking folder icon styles that I would turn back to look like classic folders.

Kind of anti-climactic getting to think about it. I wonder what took them so long to make XP with a skin and security features that will be broken in less than three weeks, if not sooner.

Edit: Sorry for stating the obvious a lot there, but it was so built up in my mind as a big deal I wanted to see it, but it really wasn't anything, and I was just thinking out loud.
 
TheBobcat said:
...and it seemed to have a lot of newfangled looking folder icon styles that I would turn back to look like classic folders. ...
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How so?

Do you mean that the new style looked so bad, you'd prefer the Classic Windows folders? Or do you mean the new style's folders would be better if they looked like Mac Classic folders?

thanks.
 
Well, like the icons were like massive with small text labels and just looked goofy, and just really stupid. Most of the new visual stuff kind of gave me a headache and really didn't make anything easier to use. It kind of seemed like change for changes sake.
 
sparky672 said:
Your statement is not well conceived or even logical. He was your buddy. You sold him something for cash. He took the merchandise and said he'd pay you later. He never paid you and claims he knows nothing of the item. No one witnessed your transaction with him except for the two of you. Bob took your merchandise, you never got paid, you're not lying and you still can't prove anything.
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You made the assumption that you knew a-priori that he did all this. This is not a valid example to state in comparison to the vista situation, you wouldn't know any thing a-priori about vista, and thus, no proof. That's what I was pointing out. If you said that I did not know Bob stole my things without the financial transaction part, that would be a more valid analogy. You can't make the assumption which fixes the outcome in your favour (in this case, the assumption would be that I know, for a fact, that Bob stole my things.)
 
TheBobcat said:
Well, like the icons were like massive with small text labels and just looked goofy, and just really stupid. Most of the new visual stuff kind of gave me a headache and really didn't make anything easier to use. It kind of seemed like change for changes sake.
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It sounds like you're just prejudiced against Vista. ;)


thank-you for the info.
 
I used Vista for the first time today, also - at a local Office Max on a laptop.

First of all, I wasn't a fan of Home Basic. It really seemed like XP with a skin, although its security features were welcome and it ran pretty fast!!!

Home Premium was pretty - not because of the translucent effects (although those were nice), but because of the way the windows opened, as if they bounced out of nowhere. It was a nice touch; the Macs windows just appear, so the new eye candy was welcome and not annoying at all.

I did open a few programs, though. They opened almost instantly (WMP and IE) - but IE had a problem and had to close (something about it not responding.) I ran into a number of dialog boxes, asking whether I wanted to close windows, accept actions, etc. That was a bit discouraging as well.

I didn't like the sidebar - dashboard is much less intrusive, and I don't use it too often so I prefer it in the background. The icons were very nice, and the packaging was pretty good also.

All in all, my superficial walk through left me disappointed. There has been quite a lot of buzz about Vista lately, and while the eye candy was nice, it felt extremely similar to XP (much like Tiger and Panther are hardly differentiable at first glance).

I guess we can look forward to Vienna...2009, I suppose :)
 
Well I'm glad this is turning out to be much ado about nothing.

I started thinking, as a person who uses other computers on a daily basis, and who hasn't been a lifelong Mac fanatic, what kind of advertising would I do to attract other people like me, who are open to picking up a Mac for the first time?

The killer for me would be to show the kinds of things that are on the Mac that just don't exist on the PC. Not that they couldn't, but they show up on the Mac. Doesn't have to be Apple software either. For example Delicious Library. Parallels. Smackbook.

I'll give you a perfect example. I use Skype all the time to talk to out-of-office coworkers. I was listening to iTunes when I got an incoming Skype call. When I picked up the call, iTunes automatically paused. When I hung up the call, iTunes resumed. Awesome! You all know what I'm talking about, the attention to detail, the little things, that a PC can do but doesn't do.

IMO Apple could open a lot of eyes with something like this, instead of the petty swipes at Vista and PCs it prefers.
 
There's an old adage, and the older I get, the more fervently I believe it:

The I.Q. of a civilization is a constant: only the population increases.

I totally support those here who've said that Apple needs to continue on with what they're doing, and also those who said that it's necessary for Apple to be an aggressive competitor.

I would also like to echo the comments of the couple people here who've said that the present Windows population has to be roused from their slumber of weary acceptance of Microsoft's products for them to take notice, and in fact I'd like to advance several additional points of my own.

I hate to point this out, but 100 is *not* the typical average I.Q. of people on this planet. The majority of people are actually BELOW 100. It's just that there are enough people with a greater-than-100-I.Q. to bring up the median average up to 100. I only relatively recently learned this, and it has explained so much of the attitudes and behaviors I have seen in people over the course of my 34 years on this planet.

The reason I bring up the point about I.Q. is that it both influences, and is influenced by, what we call "human nature". And more to the point, Microsoft has been benefitting (deliberately or not can be debated, but...) from human nature.

Case in point: Most people who are alive today and who have bought and presently own a computer as of today were *not* computer owners prior to circa 1994. Back then we had Windows 3.1/DOS 6.22 on the PC platform, and due to a variety of factors, that became the dominant standard. It was also just after (or right around the time) that the computer industry was transformed from one of incredible diversity (with it's own good and bad points) to the essentially polarized, monochromatic one we know today (Linux notwithstanding).

As an outgrowth of this general set of factors, most people who now own computers have *never known* anything other than a Microsoft-generated OS product. And it's these same people who, when they are having actual tech problems on their computers, classify it as a "computer" problem, not a "software" or a "software, specifically an OS" problem. And yes, the whole I.Q. factor plays very nicely into this as well.

What this means is that, in a very real sense, most people out there haven't seen themselves as having "Windows" problems, but that it's just part-and-parcel of having a computer to have "those kinds" of problems, and due to knowledge and other various factors don't differentiate, and therefore are unable to (and in some cases without help are incapable of) differentiate having a Mac from having any other "brand" of computer.

That's why it is necessary for people to actually sit down with a Mac and experience the difference for themselves. And I'm not arguing this point in any way.

However, that's not possible in the medium of television advertising. Frankly, without Apple continuing to stay "on message" and (gently) pounding it into people's heads that they *aren't* having "computer problems" per se, but they are OS problems, and that those problems are directly tied to the OS they are using *and* this next one that Microsoft is about to try and sell them, then the message is basically lost for most people.

It's honestly the only way for Apple to give people (you can argue it being artificial) a more factual sense of perspective. It is also Apple's incumbent responsibility to educate potential customers of the benefits of using their OS product instead of Microsoft's. And without showing what Microsoft's OS product's problems actually are, and therefore how they stand in stark (and negative) contrast to Apple's OS product, there's absolutely no reason for the average person to lift their head out of the muck long enough to realize what kind of situation they themselves are actually in.

Oh, and one other thing: I think Bill Gates is becoming mentally unstable. I'm serious, absolutely deadly serious. He's clearly pathological, he may even have other clinical issues. Here's the link to Newsweek's Steven Levy interview with Gates regarding Vista's release, and Apple's anti-Vista advertising. Tell me if he doesn't *at least* sound like Iraq's former Information Minister in his rantings here.

Thoughts or comments, folks?
 
It does seem a bit juvenile, I've not seen what the campaign entails so I'm not sure how much of an 'in your face' deal this will be. I suppose at this point it will be a matter of how people will react and what the repercussions will be.

I know SNL did a parody on the Key Note, however I've not seen that either.
 
BuzWeaver said:
It does seem a bit juvenile, I've not seen what the campaign entails so I'm not sure how much of an 'in your face' deal this will be. ...
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Just check out the links to pictures others have posted earlier in this thread.

Not "in your face" enough if you ask me.
 
long discussion here... well the bottom line is that Apple's market share is growing and over 50% of the Macs sold in the Apple Stores are to people who are new to mac (switchers). the general feedback from the ads from the people buying the computers is that they are funny and in some cases very true (not everyone experiences all the issues pointed out in the ads).

My local Apple store is in a mall with SONY and dell stores in it and I have seen people walk in the apple store with price quotes and stuff and walk out with complete systems and best of all with nice big smiles on their faces; and thats what really matters. the fact that apple does not just sell machines but solutions for your needs, they listen to you and they help you find the right computer and software, they teach you how to use your new machine with free workshops, and if you like one on one training there is procare... I mean... other computer retail stores just sell you a box and send you on your way, is that the kind of service you want after making a big investment like a computer?....

Apple is doing well and is doing the right things right now.

:apple: :cool: :apple:
 
Dont these ads kinda seem like the cool kid poking fun of the skinny computer nerd? Although they are funny, I'm not sure how affective they are and from what I hear Bill Gates wasn't too happy about these ads, as you can imagine. But who really cares about what Bill Gates thinks, hes a Mac Sell out!!
 
I dont think the ads are abusive since they point out real facts about the windows os, if they were not factual then i would guess they could be sued, and may be forced to stop airing the ads... but deep down we all know (including windows users) that there is some truth to the ads... :)

:apple: :cool: :apple:
 
Anyone see this?

News at AppleInsider:
AppleInsider said:
Vista to bite into Apple's Mac market share
The launch of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista operating system will have a negative affect on Apple's share of the personal computer market over the next several months, according to checks performed by research and investment firm PiperJaffray.
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This guy is something else, first is that if you are going to look at BestBuy, then look at those that also sell Apple computers and see how the numbers have changed at the store for both OS. If you compare that to stores with no Apple sales, you have no reference to say it will affect Apple sales.

Also he is not taking into consideration that a lot of those "Made for Vista" machines are having problems with drivers and backward compatability with the applications the buyer already has. That may result in a return or word of mouth to his friends not to buy Vista or a Vista machine.

To top it all off Leopard is coming soon (fingers crossed) and that will make some more changes on the numbers.
 
Moderator Note: Let's keep the off-topic personal banter out of this thread, please.
 
uNext said:
Wow how innovative they added a 5 year old product(ipod) and combined it with a cell phone.....I mean seriously do any of you see pass whats in front of you? Everything thats considered INNOVATIVE FOR APPLE IS OLD IN THE REAL WORLD. The only reason why is new is because is a NEW APPLE CELL PHONE PRODUCT first apple branded mobile "communicator" with an apple appeal. Nothing new about it.

Sit down and think for a minute, take jobs charisma out of your ass and see that IT IS NOT THAT GREAT. I am willing to bet money that when apple decides to support MICROSOFT in their cell phones they will outsell anything out there till then is just another cripled product restricted to what jobs believes is good for you.

Remember apple would have been stuck with their amazing 1-2% market share if they would have never decided to SUPPORT MICROSOFT.

Lets be realistic they are attacking a company that helped them get the shares the yalways dreamed off.

AND DO YOU KNOW THAT APPLE IS PAYING MICROSOFT FOR THR RIGHTS TO USE THE VISTA NAME? have any of you heard of copyright infringement?
yeah apple is attacking microsoft but in the process they are paying them lol

NOW THATS FUNNY lol

MICROSOFT IS ALL ABOUT BUSINESS APPLE IS STILL IN KIDDY LAND. very obvious with their vista attacks.
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…snip…

In America you can print and say the other guys name and even show their product without paying them. The only thing you can't show is their LOGO.

Film school 101.
 
killr_b said:
…snip…

In America you can print and say the other guys name and even show their product without paying them. The only thing you can't show is their LOGO.

Film school 101.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong but seem to remember Subway showing McDonalds' logo while doing their fat comparisons. Since you're not using someone else's logo as your own logo, I don't see how that could be restricted. I'm very familiar with copyright law but honestly don't know the answer regarding the restrictions on such use of a logo.

And I have no problem with what Apple is doing... I hope they get even more aggressive with their Vista comparisons.
 
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