Apple's 'Get A Mac' Campaign

Neon colors, loud volumes, and fast visual movements are combined together to catch the attention of millions of television viewers across the world. Advertisements on television have the advantage over other platforms of media by appealing to the senses of sight, sound, and movement to sell an idea to a specific audience. Whether that idea be a process of thought or a physical object, television commercials attempt to get people to hear and accept what a company is offering. On May 2nd of 2006, the technology company Apple launched a series of commercials to promote their Macintosh computer systems (Nudd). This nearly three and a half year long series, named “Get a Mac,” consisted of 66 television commercials directed by Phil Morrison for

The audience must be old enough to purchase and afford the expensive computers. The ideal audience is knowledgeable enough in computers to use a laptop or desktop but not so much so that they would understand the differences in computer companies. The commercial episode “Viruses” explains how Macintosh computers don’t contract viruses, while PC computers can contract over 114,000 viruses. Apple Blog states that Apple wasn’t aiming at, “a ‘geeky’ user, who would now more about viruses…. Rather, it’s an average person, who probably has a PC at home to do some work on, and might not know about Macs…,” (qtd. in Rhoads). Targeting weaker, more ignorant computer users makes it easy to sway their opinion, where as it may be more difficult to sway the opinion of a computer

The advantage of using human actors instead of inanimate products is displayed in three major ways: physical appearance of the actors, PC aggression, and Mac empathy. In the majority of the commercial series episodes, Mac (Justin Long) is dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, while PC (John Hodgman) is dressed in an uncomfortable suit (Angus). This apparel proves the campaign “guilty of ‘reinforcing stereotypes’ of nerds and cool guys,” (Rhoads). This makes Apple also guilty of assuming everyone has the need to fit in, or be a cool guy. Apple also uses personality of the “computers” to appeal to the audience. PC is shown as the rude competitor while Mac supports PC with no signs of condescension. In the spot “Goodwill,” “Mac and PC agree to put aside their differences for the holiday season. But PC slips and says Mac wastes his time with ‘frivolous pursuits.’ Mac is the bigger man, though, and suggests that they ‘pull it into hug harbor,’” (Nudd). This kindness is meant to convince consumers to purchase the seemingly nicer computer and avoid seemingly mean, disrespectful computers. Appealing to the emotional side of humans may be unrealistic in this scenario, given the products are computers, but the 39% overall product sales increase in the span of several months proves Apple’s tactics were successful