Barbara Lippert's Critique: Friendly Foes

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Let’s see—in these Mac spots, the guy on the left looks like Bill Gates, with a hint of Dilbert and Karl Rove. The guy on the right vaguely resembles Steve Jobs, only 25 years younger, crossed with a hipper Jimmy Fallon.

Which would you rather be?

The device—characterizing two people as the computers, and just letting them talk (“I’m a PC” and “I’m a Mac”) is surprising, clever and memorable. But talk about reinforcing stereotypes! How brazen is it to make one super cool, and the other your doddering uncle who lives with his mother, when, ahem, Macs now have the ability to run that pathetically square, virus-laden software called Windows? Can’t we all just get along?

And while the commercials immediately prove true to the brand (all that beautifully lit wit in white space), at the same time, in the past few years we’ve gotten used to the open and accessible iPod...





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