5 posts and columns on Laptop Hunters

QOTD

“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. I did cartwheels down the hallway.”

– Microsoft COO Kevin Turner recalls a recent chat he had with Apple legal about Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” ads

Are Those Anti-Apple Microsoft Ads Actually Working?

in Media on May 19, 2009 at 3:45 am PT

The Web is full of armchair ad critics, particularly when it comes to spots from Apple and Microsoft. And the usual consensus from the chattering classes: Apple ads goooood. Microsoft ads baaaaaad. But Microsoft’s latest campaign, which features documentary-like tales of youngish people priced out by Apple, may actually be working. At least when it comes to youngish people’s perceptions of the two brands.
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Pink PCs and Baseball Boys: These Microsoft Ads Are Growing on Me (But I Am Still a Mac!)

in News on April 10, 2009 at 2:27 am PT

OK, the Lauren ad was a little too cute for its own good, and BoomTown has no interest in Giampaulo’s “really big hands.” But the latest installment of Microsoft’s real-people advertising campaign, called “Laptop Hunters”–this time a mother and son named Lisa and Jackson looking to score a computer–is pretty funny and sweet, and the main theme of hefty value over too-thin hipness is really starting to kick in. And while I cannot blame Microsoft for sticking to the Apple-Is-for-Value-Ignorant-Elites meme, I still wish that the messaging would move on from price to more important things such as how the software and hardware perform together.
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QOTD

“I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.”

– Lauren from Microsoft’s new “Laptop Hunters” commercial sets up Apple’s next “I’m a Mac” ad