I think it's apparent that Apple has become a leader in the marketing world. The way they have built their brand, especially in the last five years, is simply brilliant. An important component of how Apple has grown their brand is in the way they have established the brand’s personality, which is partly due to the long running ‘Get a Mac’ ad campaign.
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve seen at least one of the ‘Get a Mac’ TV spots that have been continually hitting the air since May of 2006. You know, the spots with the young, hip guy known as Mac and the dorky, clueless man known as PC, that poke at the advantages of a Mac over the shortcomings of Windows based PCs. Do I really need to explain any further?
Some ad campaigns die quickly and grow stale after a few executions, but the ‘Get a Mac’ campaign continues to strive on with fresh and new spots once or twice a month if not more often. I've always been a fan of these spots, and I find I even stop to watch them whenever I'm skipping through commercial breaks on my DVR. For me, they don't get old, they always make me smile, and they’ve convinced me that my next computer purchase has to be a Mac.
The concept behind the campaign (created by TBWA/Media Arts Lab) is pretty simple, and obviously requires very little production costs. Each spot includes both actors against a solid white backdrop with maybe the use of some occasional props, but they don't contain any crazy special effects or complicated imagery. This has allowed Apple to commit to continually producing new spots on a frequent basis, and over the life of the campaign over 50 spots have aired. Talk about longevity!
This campaign is a perfect example of how a great idea, executed properly, can continue to grow over time. Here’s a look at where this campaign began back in 2006 as well as one of the newest spots that is currently airing. Even after three years, these spots use the same format and overall concept but they still come across just as clever as they did from the start.
Get a Mac – Viruses (May 2006)
Get a Mac – Legal Copy (May 2009)
To be fair, I’ll be doing a follow-up post on Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ ad campaign, which is obviously an attempted comeback to Apple’s ‘Buy a Mac’ campaign.
