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New Microsoft Ad Campaign Targets Mac Prices

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OMG, I really don't understand some of you people!

This advert is great for Microsoft, it shows customers that with a PC you get value for money, not second rate crap.

Wake up people, were all here for 1 of 2 reasons, we love Apple stuff or we hate it/have problems with it. I love Apple products and only buy Mac's but just because I do doesn't mean I expect everyone else too. My Dad for example hasn't used a computer his whole life and has started working at a college and got a laptop as he needs to do work on it, he got a Windows computer as it made sense. Cheap price, solid spec's and compatibility with the majority of software out there. The worst thing as a novice or basic computer user is when someone sends you a file or program or tells you to download something and not understanding you can't open it 'cos your on a Mac and not Windows. My girlfriends sister got a MacBook last year and she would have been so much better off with a Windows laptop. She uses MSN, Internet and Word processing. She could have saved a bundle getting a Windows machine and would have a better MSN client. The amount of times she phones me asking if this works on a Mac or how to do this and that etc just makes me realize that while OSX to us is the most intuitive OS it clearly isn't to everyone.

If my Dad had gone Mac he would be learning the Mac OS and would not get a grips with using Windows at college. People need to understand that just because we use Apple computers the whole world doesn't need too.

MS is not the devil, they do not make cheap remarks at Apple like Apple do to MS, they have made an Ad for a target audience of the casual computer user who wants value for money and to me that is a home run.

Now I know I will get a load of replies saying OMG your Dad must be stupid or whatever Macs are so easy, and the whole lack of Virus = $1000 premium etc well don't bother 'cos you are clearly too much of a fanboy to see that there are alternatives. I have a MBP ad iMac and iPhone 3g so Im not an Apple hater, but I do hate arrogant Apple fan boys. Why can't people just accept there are two types of computers and get on with it. We are worse than the 13 year olds on a PS3 forum shouting PS3 FTW OMGZ XBOX SUKZ.

Yes MacBooks come with iLife, but again to someone who wants the internet, word processing and MSN that isn't a great deal breaker. Pro users would likely by pro software anyway and other users may be happy enough having photo's in folders and may not want to edit them. And while they come pre-installed with iWork it is only a 30 day trail and you need to buy them to keep them so no its not as 'ready' as some make out. There are programs like Open Office that people can use instead of Office (and just because you are a casual user doesn't mean you wont know of Open Office, I for example installed it for my Dad). Many people that go Windows may also get some corporate version of Office (again my Dad ended up getting Office 2007 for free from the College, wouldn't have got the Mac version for free!)

So come on, bring on your virus stories, MS second rate crap and other deluded arguments fanboys use. And for everyone else that realizes there is more than one type of computer user and that Mac OSX may not cater for everyones needs at an expensive, limited hardware line I congratulate you for having the sense to realize.
 
Anuba said:
Well, that's the target demographic here so I'm not sure how the ad was a failure. Who do you think is taking the biggest hit these days, Wal-Mart or Gucci? You appear to be making the mistake of assuming that it was addressed at the Apple faithful and insecure people who buy Macs for the cool factor, when in fact it was addressed at people who loathe both of the aforementioned categories. Some ads aim to bring in new customers, other ads aim to make existing customers feel better about themselves. In this economy, hatin' on the rich and self-appointed cool is solid gold in terms of marketing potential.
Click to expand...

True. People who need Mac's and their various advantages will not be swayed by this ad, and current users won't sell up and trade in just from this advert alone. People who have the money, or more money than sense, will not be swayed by this ad - "If I've got the money, why do I have to settle for less (less being a PC :rolleyes:)". This will bring in people who already can't afford Mac's, and therefore aren't Mac users - to get a laptop they can afford.

And in our global economic standing at the moment, encouraging users to spend within their means if they need something - is a good thing.

As you rightly put - this advert is not to steal market away from Apple, but to grab extra market share by using Apple as an example. They are targeting the price difference, but not attacking Apple directly as people may think. It's as if Ford saying they we can save £40,000 but buying one of their cars instead of a Porsche for example, well yes it's true - but we all know the quality difference and what you're buying into - and it's the same between PC's and Mac's in general.
 
Real Data

I'm having a hard time recreating a 17" laptop similar to the MBP for $699.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...=dhs&cs=19&kc=productdetails~laptop_studio_17

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...=dhs&cs=19&kc=productdetails~laptop_studio_17


I think the commercial is very clever in focusing on just the 17" screen. I think people are smart enough to know that if you did a side-by-side comparison you really don't get the same thing.

So what the commercial should say is:

You don't have to get Apple . . . you can get "good enough" and be satisfied. :D
 
I`m late into this, probably been discussed, anyhow, you guys miss the point. she was after a $1000 computer, that was 17inch, has speed and comfortable keyboard.

Apple isn't flexible with their range, their prices.
She got what she wanted for $300 less than expected.

people don't need the best computers, best prettiest computers, they just want something "that works". BUT wait...apple works......at a higher price.
That laptop will be sufficient to do spreadsheets, word, photoshop, internet, mail, some movie editing, illustrator, flash games, youtube and make websites for at least the next 4/5years.

but now that I see that HP for $700, im going to go check out what they have in a 15inch range for my parents. its perfect for them in the kitchen, for what they need and will last years.

Laura is a winner in life already and knows how to get a good bargain.
BAM
 
grahamtearne said:
OMG, I really don't understand some of you people!

This advert is great for Microsoft, it shows customers that with a PC you get value for money, not second rate crap.

Wake up people, were all here for 1 of 2 reasons, we love Apple stuff or we hate it/have problems with it. I love Apple products and only buy Mac's but just because I do doesn't mean I expect everyone else too. My Dad for example hasn't used a computer his whole life and has started working at a college and got a laptop as he needs to do work on it, he got a Windows computer as it made sense. Cheap price, solid spec's and compatibility with the majority of software out there. The worst thing as a novice or basic computer user is when someone sends you a file or program or tells you to download something and not understanding you can't open it 'cos your on a Mac and not Windows. My girlfriends sister got a MacBook last year and she would have been so much better off with a Windows laptop. She uses MSN, Internet and Word processing. She could have saved a bundle getting a Windows machine and would have a better MSN client. The amount of times she phones me asking if this works on a Mac or how to do this and that etc just makes me realize that while OSX to us is the most intuitive OS it clearly isn't to everyone.

If my Dad had gone Mac he would be learning the Mac OS and would not get a grips with using Windows at college. People need to understand that just because we use Apple computers the whole world doesn't need too.

MS is not the devil, they do not make cheap remarks at Apple like Apple do to MS, they have made an Ad for a target audience of the casual computer user who wants value for money and to me that is a home run.

Now I know I will get a load of replies saying OMG your Dad must be stupid or whatever Macs are so easy, and the whole lack of Virus = $1000 premium etc well don't bother 'cos you are clearly too much of a fanboy to see that there are alternatives. I have a MBP ad iMac and iPhone 3g so Im not an Apple hater, but I do hate arrogant Apple fan boys. Why can't people just accept there are two types of computers and get on with it. We are worse than the 13 year olds on a PS3 forum shouting PS3 FTW OMGZ XBOX SUKZ.

Yes MacBooks come with iLife, but again to someone who wants the internet, word processing and MSN that isn't a great deal breaker. Pro users would likely by pro software anyway and other users may be happy enough having photo's in folders and may not want to edit them. And while they come pre-installed with iWork it is only a 30 day trail and you need to buy them to keep them so no its not as 'ready' as some make out. There are programs like Open Office that people can use instead of Office (and just because you are a casual user doesn't mean you wont know of Open Office, I for example installed it for my Dad). Many people that go Windows may also get some corporate version of Office (again my Dad ended up getting Office 2007 for free from the College, wouldn't have got the Mac version for free!)

So come on, bring on your virus stories, MS second rate crap and other deluded arguments fanboys use. And for everyone else that realizes there is more than one type of computer user and that Mac OSX may not cater for everyones needs at an expensive, limited hardware line I congratulate you for having the sense to realize.
Click to expand...
Quoted for truth.

The mere fact that this ad is all kinds of wrong in the eyes of Mac fanboys is a testament to its success. You're not the target demographic, guys -- winning you over was probably one of the anti-goals established at the very first brainstorming meeting for this ad. This one was for the masses who have better things to worry about in this economy than cool factor, showing them that getting your hands on a 17" notebook isn't this unattainable pipe dream. It makes Apple look Wall Street-, Paris Hilton-posh and aloof, and that's Apple's strong point for 5% of the population and their Achilles' heel for the other 95%.

The weak point is the machine they picked, it's one of HP's duds with a weak AMD processor. There are better 17" notebooks under the $1K mark. Other than that, good job.
 
badmac78 said:
I think the commercial is very clever in focusing on just the 17" screen. I think people are smart enough to know that if you did a side-by-side comparison you really don't get the same thing.

So what the commercial should say is:

You don't have to get Apple . . . you can get "good enough" and be satisfied. :D
Click to expand...

They aren't comparing apples with apples, they comparing everything that's available on the market. Thats what normal people do that dont care about anything but getting the job at hand done.
 
My friend makes a living from selling and maintaining PC's, we are always fighting on what's best, I have eventually convinced him on buying an iphone, his words "this is the best thing I have ever bought" then he says, maybe i should buy a mac, but then I wouldn't earn £100k a year maintaining Pc's he said, says it all really !
 
Interesting Commercial

I don't think this ad changes anyone's mind.

If anything, it illustrates, that Vista is the low-end product.

Not that Apple couldn't do a little work to release (somewhat) less expensive products, but not at the risk of cannabalizing their more costly products.

At least these commercial are a step of from Seinfeld shaving Bill Gates back hair.
 
skaertus said:
Well, the 17-inch MacBook Pro costs 4x the 17-inch HP she bought. I doubt the MacBook Pro lasts 4x longer...
Click to expand...

I don't doubt the MBP would last longer. I've got a 400mhz TiBook still running, and I see HP laptops drop like flies on a weekly basis.

Maybe when compared to a good Windows laptop, like a Thinkpad, the MBP won't last longer.
 
neiltc13 said:
In the past Windows had issues like you describe. These days though, Microsoft has pretty much solved all of those problems so it really is not a valid argument to use when comparing Windows to OS X. I would love to hear some recent, real life examples of this occurring but I doubt there are many which don't involve some degree of user incompetence.
Click to expand...
Really? Including that time when I installed Windows XP SP2 on a friend's computer, and they came back 2 hours later with the corrupted "hall.dll" having done nothing other than "download updates" such as "SP3"?

neiltc13 said:
A Mac Pro.
Click to expand...
Care to elaborate?

neiltc13 said:
When HP sells a laptop with Windows installed on it, Microsoft makes money.
Click to expand...
No they don't. Do your research; HP signs a contract to license copies of Windows, and when that is signed HP can sell whatever amount of computers they want with Windows on it for a period of time.
 
Apple will be relishing this. Yes apple computers are more expensive but that is their business imperitive. They are not bottom feeders, they have never competed on price. To go for the commodity market means you forget about any serious R&D, you just have to spend every cent scratching around trying to save a few dollars on a hard drive here, memory there.

For the customer this means that reliabilty and performance will suffer.

How do I know? How can I make such a ludicrous claim?

I have had PC's (Dells) for the past 8 years and my wife has had an (yes just one) imac during the same time. No word of a lie but her mac has resolutely kept going. I have had THREE Dells in the same time. They have fallen by the way side for one reason or another.

I promise this is no word of a lie. I am not a rabid apple fan boy trying to make a point.

Last week I brought an imac. Enough is enough, seriously I just can't bring myself to buying another PC again. They have let me down and it has cost me dear. I actually spent considerably more than an equivalent PC as I also brought Vista which I use with Bootcamp. But I don't regret one extra cent. I do not want to throw good money after bad.

I now want rock solid reliabilty and I am fed up with hard disk crashes having to shut down my PC due to non responding programmes. I am sick to death of windows and the poor performance.

Yes you pay more but apple's machines work.

AS my grand father always told me.

Pay cheap pay twice.

Yes save a few 100 dollars buying a PC but honestly you will regret it. No more will I fall into that trap.

For the record Vista runs brilliantly on bootcamp but I only allow 32 gig for it to potentially mess up .
 
jca666us said:
I don't think this ad changes anyone's mind.

If anything, it illustrates, that Vista is the low-end product.

Not that Apple couldn't do a little work to release (somewhat) less expensive products, but not at the risk of cannabalizing their more costly products.

At least these commercial are a step of from Seinfeld shaving Bill Gates back hair.
Click to expand...
I don't see how Vista is low-end by association. Is OS X low-end because it runs on a Mac Mini? It illustrates that there are inexpensive PCs, period.

If they had wanted to dazzle insecure people with money, they would've shown her buying a high-end Sony Vaio and added something about how her machine is more expressive of her personality than any of the identical-looking drab slabs of metal she could've purchased in an Apple Store. One MacBook Pro in a sea of black PC notebooks is cool and different... One alu MacBook in a sea of other alu MacBooks is more like a conformist convention where the speaker says something along the lines of "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer..."
 
jca666us said:
I don't think this ad changes anyone's mind.

If anything, it illustrates, that Vista is the low-end product.

Not that Apple couldn't do a little work to release (somewhat) less expensive products, but not at the risk of cannabalizing their more costly products.

At least these commercial are a step of from Seinfeld shaving Bill Gates back hair.
Click to expand...
A low end product that I run on my quad core with 6 GB of RAM. :D
 
mxsweb said:
"I'm a PC and I got JUST what I wanted"

BS. She wanted to be cool. Who does not?

Things she didn't wanted:

Stability
No Virus
No Spyware
Ease of use
Quality Hardware
Beautiful Industrial Design
Awesome Screen Savers
A Dock
Time Machine
Spaces
Mail
...
And the most important: THE APPLE STICKERS
Click to expand...

Sorry but, half of that wouldn't matter to the average user. I think thats what they're trying to point out. Many people wouldn't care how the darn thing looks.
 
jca666us said:
I don't think this ad changes anyone's mind.

If anything, it illustrates, that Vista is the low-end product.

Not that Apple couldn't do a little work to release (somewhat) less expensive products, but not at the risk of cannabalizing their more costly products.

At least these commercial are a step of from Seinfeld shaving Bill Gates back hair.
Click to expand...

I don think this ad has changed YOUR mind. because your to stubborn to think about her situation and what she wants.
But you'd be a great salesperson, selling the customer a high end product for which they would never take full advantage of.
 
Does this ad even say anything new? I'm sure the majority of people who buy computers know that Macs are by far more expensive. Is this really going to change people's minds when they're looking to buy a Mac? Are they going to say, "Well, I was going to buy this MBP, but I saw that Microsoft Ad and I can get a 17" model for half the price."

People who were saving up to buy a MBP are still going to buy a MBP because they deem it a worthwhile purchase, and those who end up getting the cheapie $700 HP laptop will feel vindicated that they saved a bunch of money. Who cares?
 
Finally! Microsoft hits a home run with this ad. Great message, good pace, pleasantly energetic.

Lower your prices Apple! It's your weak spot! You know it, your competition knows it, and with an ad like that, everyone knows it and won't forget it for your expensive logo.
 
needthephone said:
I have had PC's (Dells) for the past 8 years and my wife has had an (yes just one) imac during the same time. No word of a lie but her mac has resolutely kept going. I have had THREE Dells in the same time. They have fallen by the way side for one reason or another.
Click to expand...
I don't see what these stories are meant to prove... in 2002, I bought two Dells, they were 100% glitch free. In 2006, I replaced them with two new Dells, one (the desktop) was glitch free, the laptop's battery died prematurely. Called Dell, they stopped by the next day with a fresh battery covered by the warranty. I'm typing on that machine now.

In 2008, I bought an iMac. Exactly one year later, it died, and by died I mean when you press the power button you hear a faint whirring from the Superdrive that stops after 10 seconds, but the screen remains pitch black, there's no Apple startup sound, and none of the fallback methods like SMC reset or boot from OS DVD does squat. On the false assumption that I paid through my nose for AppleCare to get on-site repairs like with Dell, I called AppleCare and they explained that they're too aloof to bother with petty repairs, so I have to drag the damn thing to the nearest service center (60 miles away), therefore the iMac has been sitting in my "mañana corner" for about a month now. Ironically, my Dell desktop which had remained glitch free for 3 years, died only 2 days later. But Dell came over and replaced the motherboard the next day so the downtime was less than 24 hours.

What does this say about Dell machines, or Macs, or anything really? Nothing. It's just one man's story. The next guy can have 10 broken Macs out of 10, the next after that can have a 20-year history of glitch-free Macs... that's life.
 
neiltc13 said:
If you're buying OS X then Apple already made a good deal of money out of you selling you (likely overpriced) hardware. Microsoft makes nothing on the hardware.

There are 5 different versions, so what? It's not worse, it's just different.
Click to expand...

Apple, unlike Microsoft, is a company selling the "whole widget". "Apples and oranges"(no pun intended).

And the 5 versions means that consumers are sold "crippled" versions of Windows—versions that are "missing something". Versions that the user will get tired of and upgrade to Ultimate anyway, and CrapSoft generates another bunch of money from these upgrades.

Mac OS X is priced at $129, you get all the features, instead of the $319 that you would pay for the Ultimate (i.e. the FULL version).
 
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