See - told you so. Apple IS getting more aggressive: "Get a Mac

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See - told you so. Apple IS getting more aggressive: "Get a Mac - It just works".

Date Created: 03 May, 2006, 02:01 AM

Two weeks ago, following the receipt of an inline ad in email from Apple which looked awfully like a Dell ad. ("come build you own Mac) I blogged here that it was a sign of a more aggressive Apple.

That entry got picked up over on Digg and all manner of other places and it was quite interesting to see the comments it received. I was surprised at the diversity of sites that saw the entry as newsworthy. Now I know why...

Yesterday, Apple released half a dozen new TV ads which validated my blog entry. These are probably more reflective of an aggressive Apple that any you're likely to see - ever.

Featuring a Bill Gates look-alike, and a your cool dude (see above left), it pokes fun at all the Windows foibles Mac users have tried to tell their friends about, only to be ignored.

Now, on prime time television, these same friends will have 30 second glimpes of life on the Mac versus their lives on Windows. Six advertisements each touting a singular advantage of the Mac: resistance to viruses, restarting on Windows, networking and peripheral ease, and the iLife suite - which isn't on Windows.

Indeed, if you go to the Apple website, you no longer get a neat yet static graphic - but one of the Quicktime ads., in sharp clarity.

Head into the site itself, and Apple lists over a dozen advantages of the Mac, directly contrasting it with Windows. This is the "Get a Mac" campaign we've been waiting for.

I particularly like the first in the list, because it shows Apple has been listening to the blogosphere:

"It Just Works...."

Despite Microsoft's Jim Allchin (right) claiming this to be his own mantra, it's been something Apple users have been telling their Windows friends for years, way before Vista was on the radar.

Funny how three word slogans are popular amongst advertising agencies. Nike's Just Do It is one example; Coke's The Real Thing, another. For my UK readers, British Rail's, We're Getting There. And the granddaddy of theme all, Kellog's Snap! Crackle! Pop!

The Intel transition, Boot camp, Leopard on its way, more Vista delays, iPod domination, defeating the music industry at its own game (holding iTunes downloads at 99c), embracing podcasting, the French DRM fiasco - all point to an Apple ascendency and aggressive positioning of the Mac as the PC of choice.

Just wait until two new Apple products are delivered: a video iPod (rather than a video capable iPod) and a Media Centre product which syncs with the next iPod and you have the living room cleaned up: movies downloaded for watching at home or on the run. (I'll leave the iPhone and iTablet to the rumour sites to play with).

Watch the FUD level start to rise now.

It's already happening with security scare stories, and complaints that Apple is slow to repair security holes. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't compared to the dominant platform.

I wonder if it's a coincidence that Apple Australia's new head of Public Relations used to work for a PR agency who handled the account for a leading Anti-Virus software company?

But there is clearly an equation unravelling here: The more the dominant platform is threatened in its monopoly position and perceives itself losing its grip on consumers, the greater the frequency with which its apologists raise the level of FUD, including how Vista will leapfrog Leopard (even before anyone knows precisely what Leopard will contain).

On the other hand, it will be interesting to stand back and watch as Google and Microsoft go for each other's throats in the belief that there's huge money to be made in online advertising. Increasingly, neither is particularly relevant to Apple's existence and growth.

It reminds me of SMERSH setting the West and the East at each other's throats in so many of those James Bond novels of Ian Fleming. Actually more like Apple marching to its own drumbeat, ie., business as usual, but a tad more aggressive. Actually, a lot more aggressive with more on the way, what with more cats to be let out of the bag very soon.