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Thu, 23 Oct 2008 Apple continues to bash Microsoft with 'Bake Sale' ad

Apple knocks its rival's renewed Vista marketing effort again

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld US

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Apple continued to bash Microsoft's $300 million Windows advertising campaign Wednesday with another television ad that knocked its rival's renewed Vista marketing effort.

Like the two ads Apple debuted last week, the newest – dubbed "Bake Sale" – pointedly refers to Microsoft's makeover. Ads in Apple's long-running "Get a Mac" campaign typically diss Vista directly by focusing on a single perceived problem in the operating system.

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In the new ad, the character of "PC," played by humorist John Hodgman, says he is holding a bake sale because, "the marketing guys decided to run a big, expensive ad campaign rather than use that money to fix Vista."

When "Mac," played by actor Justin Long, asks PC why he has been forced to raise money by selling pies and cupcakes, PC replies: "Since my problems don't seem to be a priority for them, I'm taking matters into my own hands...a bake sale."

Mac then buys a cupcake, and at PC's urging, takes a bite after asking its price. "[That will be] $10 million," says PC. "Now you have to pay me because you had a bite."

Microsoft launched its Windows campaign more than a month ago with ads featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, then followed them with several new spots on the theme "Windows. Life without walls." In some of those advertisements, a real Microsoft engineer who resembles Hodgman introduces himself with the line: "Hello, I'm a PC, and I've been made into a stereotype."

Microsoft's ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, used Macs to produce some of the promotional material for the campaign, examinations of the metadata of several images showed last month.

According to Gartner, Macs accounted for nearly 10 per cent of all US computer sales in the quarter that ended 30 September. Microsoft's Windows operating system, meanwhile, continues to command the bulk the operating system market. In September, Windows had a 90.3 per cent share of the OS market, according to data from Net Applications Inc.

Vista accounted for about one-fifth of the overall Windows market, Net Applications reported.

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Comments received


Chris said on Thu, 23 Oct 2008

Why don't you ever link to anything? A link to the video of the add might enrich the long description...

Ernie(Berts mate) said on Thu, 23 Oct 2008

Why don't they stop the negative advertising and sell Apple on it's own merits?

phil said on Thu, 23 Oct 2008

Did anyone see the 'I'm a PC' ad on the box this week. A hopeless take off of the apple series, made me laugh ; )

Vinnie said on Thu, 23 Oct 2008


Mac: I have negative adverts
PC: I have a firewire connection

RR said on Thu, 23 Oct 2008

Mac: Yeah, well I invented Firewire and every PC has to pay me a royalty fee when they use one. So am I bothered?

ZABAMAN said on Fri, 24 Oct 2008

Mac: PC, why are you in the Mac adverts.
PC: Because they are less damaging to PC sales than PC adverts.
Mac: Didn't I see you throwing your PC into the canal last week?
PC: Er... Yes ... it kept spewing out stupid messages that only someone with a degree in computer science would understand, or an alien.
Mac: So what do you use now?
PC: I took your advice and got a Mac.
Mac: Really?
PC: Yes, you were right, it's F**k**g brilliant. I don't use microsoft products anymore, I can open all my word documents in pages, all my spreadsheets in numbers and my powerpoints in keynote, what's more I can now edit them all much faster and easier and all my work looks much slicker. No-one at the office knows I 've got a mac cos I save all the documents back in their pc format. People are asking questions why my productivity is up 400% though.

Ynda said on Mon, 27 Oct 2008

The new M$ adverts make me cringe. (I think the advertisers are having a laugh at Mircosoft's expense). The Apple adverts just seem to hit the right note everytime.

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