Microsoft has finally found a way to hit back at Apple’s “I’m a Mac” adverts. We don’t get MS adverts over here so this was new to me when I heard about it on a WPC09 keynote webcast the other day. Kevin Turner at MS talked about it yesterday: apparently Apple called up MS and begged them to stop running the ads 🙂
And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, "Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices." They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. (Applause.)
I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, "Is this a joke? Who are you?" Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them.
Here’s a sample of what they’ve been doing:
That last one does make an important comment … aesthetics. I’ve often joked that Mac’s were like handbags or shoes, a fashion thing. This last one isn’t made by Microsoft.