PC to Mac: Who's Square Now?

Microsoft's $300M ad campaign fights 'snooty' Apple
By Victoria Floethe,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 1, 2008 4:29 AM CDT

Apple's ads have long painted Microsoft users as square, but the PC has effectively stood up to the cool kids in the company's $300 million campaign, writes Farhad Manhoo in Slate. "Even if they are a little saccharine, the core message of Microsoft's ads—that Apple is snooty—should resonate," he writes. "That's because Apple is snooty." If you don't choose a Mac, Apple's self-affirming line goes, you're part of the lazy masses who don't stand up to the "IBM-Microsoft regime."

The message that PC users don't need software to define themselves—and that they can fire back at Apple for calling them clunkers—is a good beginning to a rebranding effort, Manhoo notes. Even if the ads could be funnier and more stylish—more like the Apple ads—Gates should feel he got in a good punch.
(More Microsoft stories.)

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