“Hello, I’m a Mac. Hello, I’m a PC”. We hear this phrase so often in society today that it’s embedded into our pop-culture. Although it is a witty and funny way of bringing out PC’s weaknesses, I feel that the message that Apple is trying to convey in their advertisement to be unethical, ignorant, and misleading.
Through these ads, we see that Apple trying to focus on corporate stereotypes and attack the traditional way of computing by introducing the idea that “PCs are what your parents use” to Generation ME. With their sarcastic ads, Apple tries to target our generation by manipulating our buying habits and shifting our focus onto a more stylish and unconventional way of computing. Apple’s main messages in these ads is that “PC’s are not cool/hip, so therefore Mac is better”.
For many people with solid understanding of computers will know that messages apple are trying to convey are only based on the surface of general computing and is in fact very untrue.
To prove my point, here are some examples:
- In an advertisment entitled “Surgery”, Apple is trying to imply that PCs needs to be updated while a Mac does not. Upgrading a PC from Windows XP to Windows VISTA is very troublesome and therefore feels like the computer is undergoing a “major surgery”. This is clearly not the case as Macs do require major updates as well (such as the Mac OSX Leopard), the only reason that people tend to miss that fact is because Apple fan-boys tend to purchase new Apple products every year or two. And by doing that, they are purchasing a whole software bundle which includes the upgrades that Windows users typically have to do seperately.
- In the advertisement entitled “Better Results”, Apple claim that Macs can outperform a PC in creating photos and videos. Again, this is false advertising as they are not using a level playing field when they are comparing the quality of the software. You can get great video/photo editing software for Windows if you purchase them separately. And by doing so, you are still paying just as much, if not less, than the money you spend on buying Mac software or Macs in general.
- In the advertisement entitled “Viruses”, Apple went overboard by implying that Macs cannot get a virus. This is just outright absurd! Every computer is vulnerable to viruses. Macs may not get the same types of viruses PCs get, but they certainly get malicious software and threats themselves. Whether it be in the form of worms or trojan horses, security breach is unavoidable. Furthermore, the reason why PC’s seem to catch more attention is because there are a lot more PC users than Mac users.
All in all, I would like to conclude that companies should not use ignorant and false advertisement to their advantage in order to fool or mislead the general public from the truth.
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