I'm a PC

The commercial starts, and you think you know where it’s going. A nerdy guy in glasses and a brown tweed blazer walks onto an all white set and says “I’m a PC.” Then an email address pops up in the bottom corner: sean@windows.com. A montage of short video clips showing a wide variety of people in real settings follows.

This isn’t the ad we expected. After more than two years of the catchy “Hi I’m a Mac” ads (see my first posting) Windows is fighting back. Their main weapon: We are not a stereotype.

Interesting. Stereotypes were what Mac based their entire campaign on. They used a lot of real user frustrations to get points across, but the foundation of their ads was to put a face to their target user. Windows has the faces of their real users. They have opened a channel for direct communication by posting email addresses of users. They have pulled celebrities into the campaign, mixed with everyday people, people who aren’t afraid to laugh at themselves. The viewer can relate.

This campaign is a great defense to the Mac attack. It is as simple and personable. Even more so than the Apple campaign. It is direct and amusing. It sticks.

So what took Windows so long? Such a simple concept shouldn’t have taken two years to create. Did they wait until Apple had dominated the market to respond? Is it too late for them to come back?

What will the next chapter of the Mac attack hold?