(Update: A fellow’s allowed to change his mind every now and then.)
My three 4-year-olds watch way too much television, but thanks to the good folks at Noggin (ask a parent of young children) they see very few commercials. Perhaps as a consequence, Emma, Grant and Max tend to find fascinating any commercials that they do see.
And one question from them pops up more often than any other: “What do they want us to buy?”
You might be surprised how often the answer isn’t obvious.
Such is the case with these new Apple ads featuring the ultra-hip “Mac” character and his nerdy stumblebum of a counterpart, “PC,” for reasons that are well articulated by Seth Stevenson, author of Slate’s “Ad Report Card.”
“I’m smack in the middle of the target demo,” Stevenson writes. “I’m a PC user, and I’ve often considered switching to an Apple. Thus, I feel equipped to say: These ads don’t work on me. They are conceptually brilliant, beautifully executed, and highly entertaining. But they don’t make me want to buy a Mac.”
Stevenson nails the why: A viewer is as likely as not to come away wanting to smack “Mac” as buy one.
“The ads pose a seemingly obvious question – would you rather be the laid-back young dude or the portly old dweeb? – but I found myself consistently giving the ‘wrong’ answer: I’d much sooner associate myself with” the “PC” actor than with “Mac,” Stevenson writes.
Another problem with the approach, which Stevenson doesn’t address, is that virtually everyone Apple hopes to attract as a customer already owns a PC – and many of us “PCs” no longer find amusing the idea that we’re a bunch of dupes. Tell me I’m a fool and then ask for my business? Not bloody likely.
Of course, there’s no telling what any individual is going to take from any single TV commercial. My son Grant asked this question after watching a spot for a financial services outfit that featured a muscular male bovine: “Do they want us to buy the bull?”
I laughed out loud … and only later did I realize that the best answer would have been: “Always, son, always.”
