I'm not a big fan of the "I'm a Mac" ads; mostly, I think they talk to the Apple faithful, not potential new customers. The Mac guy comes across as smarmy and smug, while the PC guy is more likeable. And in some cases, they're just not accurate. (And I'm writing this on my beloved Macbook!)
But I just love this one, for reasons that have nothing to do with Apple:
The PC guy is the typical techie; he just wants to talk about technology honestly. The PR person gets endlessly frustrated, because he just tells it like it is. Haven't we all seen this over and over? The Apple guy is, of course, an annoying marketing director, who wants to talk about his key messages without the engineers getting into irritating details. Haven't all of us who've worked in tech marketing lived this?
There's also a funny irony about this ad; Apple is terrible at having open conversations with its customers, and Microsoft is not. Apple is still caught up in carefully controlling the conversation and offering only calculated, filtered statements. While users are left speculating about what's next from the company, the Microsoft Mac development team is blogging about their work, including the upcoming Office 2008.
So it's a big funny to see Apple dinging Microsoft for PR spin. This funny post from Fake Steve Jobs is a bit closer to the truth. As a big fan of Apple's products, I'd like to see them take a lead from Microsoft on this count.
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