There has been some buzz on the internet recently about some pretty funny Apple advertisements comparing a PC vs. a Mac. In case you haven’t seen it, click on the movie below for an example or find all movies on Apple’s website.

Bill Gates doesn’t like at all. Actually his response to these ads could come straight from the guy in the movie. Here is what he said:

msnbc.com: How about the implication that you need surgery to upgrade?
Bill Gates: Well, certainly we’ve done a better job letting you upgrade on the hardware than our competitors have done. You can choose to buy a new machine, or you can choose to do an upgrade. And I don’t know why [Apple is] acting like it’s superior. I don’t even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you’re really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There’s not even the slightest shred of truth to it.You see, that’s what you call advertising. It’s not about facts, it’s about emotions. And arguing that there is “not even the slightest shred of truth to it” completely misses the point. It’s about role-models in this ad, and not about facts. Some people at Microsoft *kind of* understood what the idea with role models is. But more about this later….

So Microsoft has been a little bit slow so far with a creative answer to the blog. Nevertheless in the age of user-generated content internet users already came up with their answer to the Apple advertisements. One forum entry on the Channel9 website of the Microsoft Developer Network had an interesting reply, check it out here.And even some people spend their time on creating a movie to reply to these advertisements. A funny can be found below, others can be found on this website.

Yet it gets even better. So some execs at Microsoft probably thought “Damn it, Windows user looks studid in these adds. The Mac guy is just a hip role model - maybe we can create a hip Microsoft guy and use it as a role-model for our advertisements”. And then…everything got worse…..Microsoft created “funny” advertisements promoting their new Windows Mobile 6.0 operating system using some “young, energetic, successful” guy as their role-model. You can find one of these ads below or more of them (you really wanna see more?) here.

Now what’s wrong with this? Sorry, it’s not cool to be tied up to a light pole and be able to check your eMail. It’s not cool to be in a beaver cage and work on some Excel spread sheet. And no, it’s not cool to be able to work on your documents when you are stuck in an elevator full of snakes. This guy simply doesn’t give me the feeling of beeing “young, energetic, successful” but just some weird guy who is addicted to his email and work. Is this a role model anyone wants to follow?

This also reminds me of the marketing message of the Windows powered Ultra Mobile PC-UMPC, something like “Surf on the internet sitting on the beach, while your friends surf in the water.” Come on, you are joking - right?

Enough ranting for today….

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