Mac or PC? Advocates for each will testify superiority, whether you can characterise all PC users as in this ad is up for question. They get away with it because ‘PC’ is not a brand name, it is merely the term used to broadly classify any computer that is not a Mac. As a result, there is freedom to classify all PC users as so pleased since the broad segments of users range from first time buyers and beginner users to hardcore gamers and standard office workers. Mac are equally free to explicitly play on their cool brand image personifying PC as the complete opposite to convey the message. Concurrently, the Mac character acts to reassure the consumer of the machines abilities, communicating infomation-based congnitive messages while the contrast of the PC communicates the affective-based brand image connotations.
Great Ad – How Simple!
The second ad in the series starts to focus on the defects of the PC…
In classic South Park style, this parody of the Mac Vs PC ads is a good example of online culture jamming, or more technology culture jamming.
The brand personality that has come to characterise the Mac is so easily contrasted with those of a well-defined counter personality (that is not brand specific) apparent in the depiction of the PC. The real crux here is that the contrast is not brand specific, leaving freedom to personify the competition. Would this work in other product categories? Maybe Dyson with their well-defined superior brand image against other vacuums. But would this have the same effect since all computers are so regularly referred to as PCs, and the less definition between Dyson and other vacuums compared with Mac over other computers? I think the term is key, even as I write other computers, I feel I should be writing the word PC. Are there any other product categories that have a term defining all brands other than the one brand in that category with superior positioning?
