VIDEO: Microsoft goes straight for the Apple ads

Posted at: 2:12pm 19th September 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Jerry Seinfeld is out; I’m a PC guy is in .

After experimenting with three ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, resulting in mixed opinions about whether they’re funny or not (they’re not), Microsoft has now decided to go straight for the Jobsular with its next set of ads for Windows. Directly targeting Apple’s ‘I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC’ series of Get a Mac ads, Microsoft’s new adverts are all introduced by a man who looks like John Hodgman (the PC in the Mac ads), saying ‘I’m a PC.’

He then follows this with another phrase, such as ‘and I’ve been made into a stereotype’ before  the advert shifts to a range of people performing a diverse assortment of jobs, all of which also say they’re a PC. Among those featured are astronaut Bernard Harris, as well as religious author Deepak Chopra and ‘Desperate Housewives’ actress Eva Longoria. The ad also features a wide range of anonymous people, including a shark diver, a teacher and a guy with a beard.

Microsoft claims that the Bill-and-Jerry ads, which were reportedly dropped a couple of days ago, were just ‘teaser’ ads, which will now make way for the new ads. These will ‘celebrate the diversity and passion of consumers around the world who use Windows to stay in touch with the people, information and ideas that they care about.’

As well as this, Microsoft is also asking for your own contributions to the campaign. So, if you consider yourself to be a PC, then you can upload your own video or photo here. Microsoft’s senior vice president of online services and Windows Business Group, Bill Veghte, Senior Vice President, Online Services & Windows Business Group says that if you upload your own entry, Microsoft will ‘publish it and amplify it on windows.com … and then we’ll do better than that – we’ll publish some of those I’m a PC spots in places like digital billboards in Times Square.’

Of course, the whole ‘I’m a Mac and I’m a PC’ thing is pretty irrelevant anyway, when you consider that Macs are now based on the same Intel hardware as many PCs. We’re really talking about operating systems rather than computer standards here and, let’s face it, Microsoft isn’t being particularly original by parodying the ads of its competitors.

You can check out the videos for the new ads on the next page. Could they help improve Microsoft’s public image against Apple’s? Let us know your thoughts.