In a rare turn of events, the first TV ad for the new MacBook shows almost none of its salient features. Instead, Apple has focussed on how green their computers are. Or have they? If you notice, the ad mentions that the “new MacBook”, has a aluminium the unibody enclosure, the glossy glass display, and shows a complete 360 degrees of what it looks like. Mentioning the buttonless trackpad to PC users wouldn’t be advisable on TV.

The Ad of course is very Apple like, with stunning production quality, right down to the green hue that dominates the video. Go check it out on Apple.com/Mac/Green-Notebooks/.

And speaking of the environment, 2008 has been a very green year for Apple. Starting with the whole “A Greener Apple” promise back in mid 2007, Jobs and his jolly band of outlaws have been steadily getting out the toxins and plastic from their products. Read all you want about this in their special Environment Page.

The latest in the series of iPhone ads features yet another iPhone app, “Shazam” [iTunes link] in action - listening to a song and showing you who the artist is. The music played to Shazam is also the theme music for the ad. The song on the iPhone is then played, in tune with the advert! Apple does know how to make good soundtracks!

Shazam is an application that can tell you what music you’re listening to. It could be any track from any source. As long as the iPhone can listen to it (and pass on the message to the cloud), you get to know the name of the song, a lot of artist info, and if available, a shortcut to purchase that app using the Wifi Music Store. Shazam is free of charge from the app store [iTunes link].

You can watch the new advert on the iPhone Ads page, along with recent adverts such as Loopt and UrbanSpoon.

Apple has posted another ad in the ‘make fun of vista problems’ series, also known as the ‘Get a Mac’ ads. This one, called ‘Bake Sale’, exaggerates the extent to which Microsoft is relying on an advertising blitz to fix Vista problems. An earlier ad (Bean Counter) also followed a similar theme but this one is not-so-subtle. This one will continue to rile Windows users but seems like a conscious strategy from Apple and its advertising agency to create even more dissonance about Vista and thereby urging the fence-sitters (not to be confused with the fence shitters) to make that switch.

Personally speaking, the earlier set of ads that focused on a specific feature or benefit of using a Mac (e.g Magsafe connector translated into the ‘Accident’ ad) or a specific drawback of the PC (trial software or bloatware translated into the ‘Stuffed’ ad) worked better for me. Nevertheless, Apple should continue with this strategy of creating a certain discomfiture about being a PC owner among potential Mac users. The executions may vary in the ‘likeability quotient’ but this strategy is likely to pay dividends, even if it means pissing off many PC users. Take a look at some of the usual ‘insult comments’ over at YouTube.

What do you make of the ‘Get a Mac’ ad series? Time for Apple to let go of this strategy or should they keep at it?

One thing that missed the boat for the Notebook event, was a new Get A Mac ad. It was really weird looking at an old one being played at the keynote. But Apple seemed to have already been working on a new ones, and has put its finishing touches on two brand new ones. 

Titled “V Word” and “Bean Counter”, these two are direct replies to the Microsoft’s activities in recent times. The first one refers to Microsoft announcing that the next version of Windows will be called simply “Windows 7”. PC bans the use of the “V word”. The second one, and in my opinion their best yet, has a nice jab at Microsoft’s recent advertising campaign that we’ve seen go down the drain.

Both ads are well done, and are a pleasant watch. Go check ‘em out at apple.com/getamac/ads.

A lot has been said about Microsoft and their efforts to counterattack Apple’s brilliant ‘Get a Mac’ ads by launching their own ‘I’m a PC’ ads, which is a part of their $300 million campaign. After scrapping the Gates-Seinfeld ads, the ads now feature a John Hodgman lookalike who claims, “I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype.” The ad is followed by many other humans who claim that they’re PCs. Apparently, as it was with WALL·E, there are a few Apple Connections with these ads too.

1. ’I’m a PC’ campaign created with Macs

Can you believe that! Flickr user LuisDS has found out, through the metadata of the official creative copy of the “stereotyped PC user” and other photos appearing on Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” website, that the images were created on a Macintosh. And it doesn’t end there. Microsoft, instead of using their own Expression Studio software, which they claim “takes your creative possibilities to a new level”, were found using Adobe Photoshop CS3 (on a Mac, no less) from Adobe’s popular Creative Suite. Expectedly, Microsoft folks have now covered up their mistake by removing all the data from the images. Not just that, this article on RoughlyDrafted goes on to claim that the ads were audio-mixed on Macs too. I guess it’s true, creative minds always choose a Mac.

[Milind: As a sidenote, the Windows logo, packaging, the blueprints of Bill Gates’s house, a lot of previous Microsoft ads, and most PC magazines were also created on a Mac.]

2. Pharrell Williams uses a Mac too

Pharrell Williams, or simply ‘Pharrell’, the American music producer, songwriter, and rapper, features in the Micrsoft ads along with other celebrities such as Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra, claiming “I’m a PC”. Well, okay; but as it turns out, Pharrell is also an ardent Apple lover. According to MediaBistro, Pharrell owns an iPhone and has gone on record singing praises for his iPod in interviews. Not just that, he also apparently uses a Mac.

It seems you can make anyone talk what you want them to as long as money is involved. [Ed note: You know what they say, “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink”.]

3. John Hodgman, Mr. PC himself, uses an iPhone 

OK, so this isn’t exactly related directly to Microsoft and its campaign, but it’s about the PC guys adoring Apple and is quite interesting. John Hodgman, Mr. PC from Apple’s ‘Get a Mac’ ads, was recently seen using an iPhone. I wonder how he finds time off his busy schedule of stopping users from ‘Switching to a Mac”. Although it is not too clear whether he bought it himself or Steve just gifted him one, seeing the popularity of the ‘Get a Mac’ ads, but the fact remains that he’s still drooling over the ‘Gadget of the Year’.

I think I get it now: it doesn’t matter what type of PC user you are (since PC is more of a generalised term; you may be a PC user using Windows, Linux distros, or BSD), there’s nothing that can stop you from adoring an Apple product.

The good folks over at UsingMac have brought together and published a collection of classic Apple Ads from 1998 till date.

Here are some of them that I particularly liked:

The iMac comes in colors 

The new iMac 

Is your BMW powered by a click wheel or steering wheel? 

Some of these products’ ads are so nicely done that even if you have used an Apple product today, you’ll still  be asking yourself if this is some new line launched recently! Honestly, that candy floss iMac looks more gorgeous than most of the desktops PCs sold today.

Take a look and check out some of the classic Apple products ads in the last decade.

This is it, folks. This is what it has come to! Microsoft has finally closed shop for its Seinfeld-Gates series, released some “Life without Windows” print ads, and has started airing the ‘Get a Mac’ clones, “I’m a PC”.

“I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype”, says the fake Hodgman. John Hodgman, as you may know, is the guy who plays the PC in the ‘Get a Mac’ ads. Why they couldn’t have just used Gates is beyond me. After all, Hodgman is the fake Gates!

The ads show a series of scenes with various people anthropomorphizing themselves as “PCs”. How Microsoft could think that a meaningless repetition of “I’m a PC, I’m a PC” could ever be interesting, I’ll never know. And if Microsoft thought that ending the ad with Deepak Chopra’s “not a human doing, not a human thinking; a human being” is any saving grace, they better rethink their strategy. 

Microsoft has obviously gone on a defensive stance with this little skit, trying to collect all the beans spilled by Apple’s parade of ‘Get a Mac’ ads. Ultimately, no one will understand what the ads are trying to say, and this will not result in a single additional copy of Vista being sold. In fact, Apple Stores are probably getting hammered with new customers wondering what the fuss is about!

And if you think Microsoft cannot be dumber than this, you should know that they forgot to hide the fact that four of the images that Microsoft used on its PressPass site were made on a Mac! ComputerWorld has found that the images in question use “Adobe CS3 Macintosh” as the creation software, which leads us to wonder, does the mythical Mac in Gates’s basement actually exist? 

You can watch all three ads, if you have the tolerance, after the jump. And unlike on the Microsoft page, you can view them without installing any Silverlight crap. Continue Reading »

I’ve grown up gazing at Amul Ads on hoardings on the way to my school. There’s this one place in Chennai in Anna Salai which had a new one every month which would make heads turn as we passed through that busy junction.

This month’s ad features a brilliant rendition of the iPhone. Note the use of various Amul products as iPhone icons and the tagline: “Lots on the menu”. Amul ads, as many of you may know, are a crossover of current issues at hand and Amul products (generally butter). Some good examples: “Amul - A Hard Hobbit to Break!”, “Bips Smacking!”, “Butter-Touille”, “Voluntary Delicious Intake Scheme”, etc.

If you thought Apple or Vodaphone did amazing ad campaigns, think again. The folks at Amul have been doing some wonderful campaigns since 1976, and without any flashing electronic/vinyl hoardings—just plain old paintings. You can see Amul’s Ads through the years on their website.

Whatever happened to Bill’s plans of retiring and dedicating his life to helping the world with his great schemes of philanthropy? I sure thought it was a damn good way to retire. However, from what I can see, all he is doing right now is helping Microsoft burn up cash on petty jokes and self-deprecating humour.

If you look at the latest ad, the second spot in their $300 million campaign, you cannot draw any other conclusion. In fact, this is even worse than the first one with Bill’s underwear joke. A full four and a half minutes long, it speaks of Microsoft for two seconds, and that too just in passing. Seriously guys, what’s happening here? Is the top brass at Microsoft playing the most expensive prank on us?

If, for some reason, you think I’m exaggerating, see for yourself. You have been warned that you will lose four and a half minutes of your life watching this, so don’t blame me later on.

The watchful folks over at Engadget found that Dell was trying to make a dent in the Apple universe with a cheap shot video of their Latitude E4200. What Dell doesn’t realise is that the Apple universe is guarded right now by the moulded steel of the iPod Touch, liquid metal of the iPod nano, and the swirling planets of iTunes 8. Sorry Dell, bad timing, and more importantly, poor ad.

The ad sports the same manilla envelope that Apple uses, except that with the Dell in it, the envelope looks like its going to burst open. The ad then cleverly tries, but fails, to hide the sheer thickness of the Latitude as compared to the Air. Engadget notes that even the music is stolen from some Lenovo ads that aired a couple of months ago. What’s next Dell, gonna copy the iPod people as well?