I’m sure you must have heard by now that the Simpsons have made a visit, or should I say attacked, the Mapple Store. I don’t watch the not-so-funny-anymore Simpsons (Personal opinion! Please don’t hurt me!) so I first came to know about Mapple on twitter.

The scene itself is brilliantly done and stupendously funny for those who know Apple as a company, yes, including you. The funniest moment was when that fat bully runs to the giant Steve Mobs screen with an oversized hammer, a lá the famed 1984 Macintosh commercial. Watch the scene yourself, in an embedded video after the jump. Continue Reading »

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.

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.

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.

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?

After hinting at getting back at the Get a Mac ads, then signing on Jerry Seinfeld to do the job on a $300 million ad campaign, Microsoft has finally got their first ad out the doors.

“Huh?”

Watch the ad and that is definitely going to be your reaction. The 90 second ad consists mainly of friendly banter between Jerry and Gates at a discount shoe store, totally unrelated to Microsoft. And even the last 20 odd seconds, which actually speak about Microsoft, have some vague mention of the future and it being delicious. So in effect they are admitting that Vista is a flop and you had better wait for the future to bring in something better.  

Another way to look at this, is Microsoft is trying to get a new brand identity for the whole company, and not just Windows. An identity that is hip, cool, and fun loving. But having two old guys do that isn’t exactly the right way to go about things. Either that, or I just don’t get it.

This certainly isn’t their best foot forward. Bill Gates is a natural though, and his humour is well received. But this, as a competition to the Get a Mac ads? No way! 

Take a look for yourself and let us know what you think of this, what I would like to call, epic fail.

On the event of the iMac’s tenth anniversary, Scott McNulty, over at MacUser, posted ten of his most favourite iMac commercials since its inception. From the original bondi blue iMac to the latest aluminium and glass machine, he’s covered it all.

One of the videos he posted, though not really an advertisement, literally made me laugh. It’s quite old but still clearly relevant and true. Check out the three-and-a-half minute video below and marvel at the simplicity that’s associated with every Mac and is ingrained in Apple’s DNA even today.

[Full disclosure: The author of this post is also a freelance blogger for MacUser.]