Apple has quietly pulled the "I'm A Mac, and I'm a PC" ads from its UK website, following a less than stellar campaign to persuade potential PC buyers to switch.
The campaign, fronted by Peep Show stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb, led to complaints by some TV viewers and even had a negative effect - our attitudes towards the Mac and Apple actually got worse after the ads were shown. At least in the UK.
The problem was partly one of casting - Mitchell was quite endearing as the nerdy, bumbling PC type and was actually pretty funny; Webb's Mac user merely appeared smug and complacent - just like real-life Mac users perhaps?
There was also an undertow of bitterness and vitriol not really seen in the US versions of the same ads, which are gentler and a bit less grating in their original American context.
A smug of Mac users?
Apple has replaced the TV ads with a simple Get A Mac page, extolling the virtues of the Mac over a PC.
Perhaps what really got on people's tits is the knowledge that Mac users really are superior - and PC users are just too ashamed to admit it. That's certainly what US advertising journal AdAge suggests in its latest issue:
"The one area where PC users did stand out as statistically different was in creativity -- low creativity, that is. Mindset Media found they tend to be realists who are emotionally steady and work well with what they're given."
That'll explain why Windows is so successful then.
BTW, individual, creative Mac types like to club together in trendy wine bars and lick their laptops nightly. Collectively they're known as Mac User Groups or MUGs. Need we say more?
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