I’m Just Not Cool Enough To Be a Mac Person
I saw this commercial flash by on my Tivo the other day and stopped to watch it. It’s an advertisement for Microsoft that follows a girl named Lauren who is looking for a laptop for $1000.
The most noticeable thing she said during the ad for me was,
I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.
I was pretty angry when she said that. I would FAR rather sacrifice on screen size and go with the 13″ screen in order to have the easy to use operating system and applications that come with my Mac.
I was about to write a scathing review when I realized that Michael Gartenberg had written it for me.
In tough economic times it’s not just about price but value. Where do I, the consumer, get the most value for each dollar I spend. Or as Oscar Wilde said, “The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.â€
Apple’s ads have never been about being the cheapest, they are about the value that comes with owning a Macintosh. The differentiation of the PC/Mac experience through hardware and software design that’s what’s been attracting consumers. Apple’s continued to do well even in these times precisely because consumers are extra careful about where they spend their money. They can’t afford buyer’s remorse.
Microsoft can’t just make this about cost, it has to show value. It has to show a PC experience that can be equal or superior to a Macintosh experience. Only then does price matter in the long run.
Michael quoted Oscar Wilde, but there is another quote that rings true here:
Buy expensive and cry once. Buy cheap and cry a million times.
I fought and FOUGHT with my PC to make it do what my Mac does easily. Macs aren’t perfect. Mine crashes and I get the spinning beach ball of doom every once and a while, but the act of using my computer is so much easier now.
Sure, a Windows machine might be okay for a netbook, but if you need to do anything substantial with your machine (like video editing or photo editing), then you will get FAR more value from a $1000 Mac with a 13″ screen than that 17″ Hewlett Packard that Lauren got. I hope she doesn’t have to cry a million times.