Apple hits back with four new Hodgman-Long Mac ads

By Tom Krazit on 21 April 2009, 9:53am

Apple released four new Get a Mac ads on Monday, continuing its nearly three-year-old campaign tweaking Windows PCs, just weeks after Microsoft began firing back with its own commercials.

The new ads are available on Apple's US Web site, and will no doubt flood the American airwaves in due course. Apple is following its usual script with the new spots, showing the character 'PC', as played by comedian John Hodgman, as virus-prone, unstable and difficult to use.

Microsoft's recent ads have focused on price comparisons with Macs, and Apple makes a brief reference to that line of thinking in the 'Stacks' ad, in which 'Mac' (Justin Long) responds to PC's observation that the facial-recognition technology in the new iPhoto must be expensive by noting that it comes free with every new Mac.

But otherwise it's the same old strategy of pushing the Mac as an easier-to-use and more reliable computer, with few references to price. One new twist is that a controversy has already sprung up over some of the claims in the 'Legal Copy' ad.

MacJournals took the time to transcribe all the fine print that's overlaid on that ad, which PC says it's necessary for him to make claims such as "PCs are now 100 per cent trouble-free". Apple inserts a few slams at difficult-to-understand Windows components such as registry keys and virus-protection procedures, but also implies that some basic maintenance tips that apply to any computer, such as emptying the trash and downloading driver updates, are unique to the PC.

It's unlikely anyone watching the ad will actually be able to read the entire fine print as the ad whizzes by, but Apple has to be careful about how it advertises the Mac as "trouble-free", since when problems or confusion do occur with Mac OS X, customers can be disproportionately annoyed.

Still, the campaign's message seems to have had an impact over the past three years. While there's definitely something to be said for the 'ain't broke, don't fix it' strategy, at some point Apple will need fresh ideas if Microsoft continues to hammer away with its own anti-Mac campaign.