My Mac ad idea
Joe Wilcox at Jupiter Research's Microsoft Monitor Blog writes about how the software giant should use more context-based advertising.
He says Apple's ads have had a "contextual, emotive quality" while Microsoft's have tended to be dry and brochure-like. He dashes off three examples of ad ideas that he feels would sell Microsoft's products more effectively.
After Santa gave my wife an Apple iBook for Christmas, I noticed a couple of behavioral changes in us that would make the foundation for a great Apple commercial.
I'm a journalist and my wife is a musician. That means I sit and type all day and try to be clever with words, while she of course is concerned with being in tune, having the right timing, etc.
However, my favorite program on the Mac is GarageBand. Now, I have even less musical talent than most of this year's Grammy winners, which is saying a lot. I really dig music, but I just can't, for the life of me, sing in key or play an instrument even as basic as the kazoo. But with GB, I can sit there and drag and drop loops until the cows come home. It's the editing process that grips me -- making sure that cymbal comes in at just the right time, that the British Invasion guitar doesn't drag on for too long, that the strings aren't too overwhelming. Or the satisfaction that comes with discovering that "Rural Banjo 3" actually goes really well with "Dance Club Beat 16".
My wife, on the other hand, is quite taken with the word processor. I forget what it's called -- iText, probably, or something like that. What she likes to do is sit down and write little "Sex and the City" style essays about stuff happening in Beijing.
So the Mac enables a writer with no musical talent to create songs in his spare time, while a musician with no previous interest in writing is now compelled to compose essays.
In the interest of balancing out the edge Microsoft is sure to gain from following Wilcox's advice, I offer the above as an ad outline to Steve Jobs. It would start by cutting between shots of some scribbler pounding away at his keyboard all day, and a woman exhausted after hours in the recording studio. They come home and sit down at their respective Macs. Soon, the guy is jamming away on GarageBand while she is typing away furiously on a novel she is writing or something.
I'll leave it to Apple's marketing department to work out the actual script and shots, though I suppose it will be hard to find an actor that conveys the sort of rugged yet sophisticated manliness I am known for.
This one's free, though if Jobs wants to flip an iPod or a Mac mini my way, I won't complain.
He says Apple's ads have had a "contextual, emotive quality" while Microsoft's have tended to be dry and brochure-like. He dashes off three examples of ad ideas that he feels would sell Microsoft's products more effectively.
After Santa gave my wife an Apple iBook for Christmas, I noticed a couple of behavioral changes in us that would make the foundation for a great Apple commercial.
I'm a journalist and my wife is a musician. That means I sit and type all day and try to be clever with words, while she of course is concerned with being in tune, having the right timing, etc.
However, my favorite program on the Mac is GarageBand. Now, I have even less musical talent than most of this year's Grammy winners, which is saying a lot. I really dig music, but I just can't, for the life of me, sing in key or play an instrument even as basic as the kazoo. But with GB, I can sit there and drag and drop loops until the cows come home. It's the editing process that grips me -- making sure that cymbal comes in at just the right time, that the British Invasion guitar doesn't drag on for too long, that the strings aren't too overwhelming. Or the satisfaction that comes with discovering that "Rural Banjo 3" actually goes really well with "Dance Club Beat 16".
My wife, on the other hand, is quite taken with the word processor. I forget what it's called -- iText, probably, or something like that. What she likes to do is sit down and write little "Sex and the City" style essays about stuff happening in Beijing.
So the Mac enables a writer with no musical talent to create songs in his spare time, while a musician with no previous interest in writing is now compelled to compose essays.
In the interest of balancing out the edge Microsoft is sure to gain from following Wilcox's advice, I offer the above as an ad outline to Steve Jobs. It would start by cutting between shots of some scribbler pounding away at his keyboard all day, and a woman exhausted after hours in the recording studio. They come home and sit down at their respective Macs. Soon, the guy is jamming away on GarageBand while she is typing away furiously on a novel she is writing or something.
I'll leave it to Apple's marketing department to work out the actual script and shots, though I suppose it will be hard to find an actor that conveys the sort of rugged yet sophisticated manliness I am known for.
This one's free, though if Jobs wants to flip an iPod or a Mac mini my way, I won't complain.
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