Apple responds to Microsoft's Laptop Hunters

perfect emotional ad indeed - edward bernays would be proud. they avoided talking about rational things like giving consumers more information so that they can make a good decision, and instead, plays on their emotions and ignorance. macs dont get problems, macs dont get problems, macs dont problems, good, repeat after me, macs dont get problems, macs dont get problems. good.

i'm not disagreeing with you at all, this is a great advertisement, edward bernays was right - reason doesn't sell, but emotion does. he was also right about how you can manipulate the masses and protect them from their silly reasoning, by directing them through propaganda to behave as willing sheep. 'propaganda' was the term for marketing/public relations - but for marketing purposes it was rebranded....

that coercive sick spirit we all know as propaganda, those books bernays wrote that inspired third reich ministers and corporate leads in the US alike, that helped turn the white house into a PR stunt, it was tat same spirit,t he same techniques, the same understandings that lead to today's world of marketing. no stretch, no connect far away dots -- directly the same history. focus groups, emotion targeting, the psychological analysis of consumers to figure out ways to manipulate them, these are the backbones of both advertising and psychological warfare, the division quite blurry.

so yes, this is great marketing -- and damn, i hate marketing. i like businesses, i love technology, but marketing is sick, twisted, manipulative stuff

maybe im still somewhat naive but i think if your product is good enough at solving people's problems, of adding real value, you don't need much marketing - not int he public relations sense - you just need to get people aware your product exists.

my first company we had a guy who got real big into marketing, i noticed he contributed almost nothing to the company, and he didn't bring in many people, and the way he brought people in, i didn't dig it - i felt the first thing to do was repair the relationship with this person. second company, i was only 30% and the main guy was big into marketing with this other guy, they took care of that - once again they're added efforts did very little - what really sold was the innovative ideas i came up with in the software, and just the fact that was there reaching the ears of potential customers -- so marketing in the sense of getting the word out helped, but all their other efforts - the way they wrote up PR releases, their promotional give aways, did almost nothing. Maybe I've only worked with poor marketers, maybe if I met a really manipulative person...they'd show me how it can be done well.

"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. " - bill hicks.. full text: http://sennoma.net/main/edits/Hicks.html

I'm surprised more hasn't been said about the absurdity of ads talking about how expensive a competitor is that then end with the protagonist being handed cash on camera. It's almost frighteningly postmodern but it gets lost in the Mac vs Win gang fights.