Apple’s New Mac Commercials and A Great Book on Steve Jobs
I am currently sensitized to Apple. I have been reading “iCon: Steve Jobs The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business”, a great take on Steve Jobs by Jeffrey Young and William Simon. I highly recommend it as insight into Steve, Apple and Apple’s resurrection. The book is informative, and more to the point, highly entertaining. It isn’t often that I view a book about a computer company CEO as being a page-turner. By the way, Steve (ever capable of being majorly pissed off) disliked his profile so much that he banned the publisher’s books from all Apple stores. Get this, John Wiley & Sons, the publisher, publishes the Dummies series.
OK, on to the commercials. Wonderful. Simple. Clear. To the point. And, not just to the point, they make all the points that make Macs the best computers in many users heads. Each simple spot, which shows two actors (one with a Bill Gates vibe and one with a combo hip/slacker/cool vibe) and the simple intro “Hello I’m a Mac. Hello I’m a PC”, highlights a key Mac vs. PC advantage. These include PC’s poor viral protection, the PC’s desire to occasionally freeze, Mac’s iLife and a glowing review from The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg on the Mac.
I also like the spots because they remind me of the TV that we did a couple of years ago for the Bend Memorial Clinic. Wonderful. Simple. Clear. To the point. You can see them by going to our website and moving to the “Our work” section off the front page.
June 6th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
I agree that the book is a great read and insight into some of the things that Steve Jobs did over and over again until he realized what he was doing wrong (or got lucky) and changed. Plus it also the parts that Steve Wozniak and others played.
I think the Apple commercials are brilliant for the things they don’t say in addition to the things they do. They don’t say “Microsoft is old and mainstream like IBM” but the suit on the actor does. They don’t say “Apple is young and hip” but the actors stance and clothing do. Very cool symbology. And what they do say is very on the mark. My iMac is 7 years old and still in use. A PC 7 years old is in the landfill.