Mac Attack, by Seth Stevenson

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Slate magazine published, “Mac attack”, “Apple’s mean-spirited new ad campaign”. This article was posted in Slate magazine, on Monday, June 19, 2006, at 6:2 9 AM ET. The article was written by Seth Stevenson an analytical writer who’s, work is periodically published in Slate magazine. The article summarizes Stevenson’s view of Apple Computers advertising campaign.

Seth Stevenson has written an exemplary article denoting his opinion of Apple’s advertising campaign using PC man, actor John Hodgman, versus Mac boy, actor Justin Long. The commentary is well documented with examples and opinions generated from Stevenson’s experience and knowledge. He generates a sense of belonging, to some of the audience by appealing to the experienced PC user’s knowledge of PC functionality. This inclusion may be lost on those not well versed in PC usage, or those whose only knowledge is that of a Macintosh.

Stevenson places himself in the midst of the targeted demographic in paragraph three, where he states, he is a PC user that has envisioned moving to the Mac realm. He goes on in paragraph 3 to say that the advertisements, while wonderful, have not made him want to switch to a Mac. This information, along with the description of the actors involved, gives us the ability to recognize Stevenson’s grade for the advertisement campaign as being accurate, or inaccurate.

The Advertising campaign focuses on multiple video ads depicted during a period of time; the name of each advertisement is given within the article. Stevenson gives some detail on each of the advertisements by depicting verbally the content of the ad as well as a verbal depiction of the visual content. Stevenson starts the article, with an informative verbal depict...

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...uld have been swayed with this presentation. I am not a user of Macintosh products, but the advertising campaign used Humor and good-natured stabs at the PC crowd to gain a following, and possibly using the in-crowd philosophy a partial gain in market share. Stevenson graded this advertising campaign with a “C” rating, which in the period involved may have been an accurate score. Today’s standards would probably change the grading scale somewhat. If there were modern products involved, and the same strategies were employed, the rating should be higher than given in 2006. This campaign strategy is in use today on the T-Mobile advertisements, and for some it works perfectly, but in that it gives little information on the products themselves, it leaves the consumer without resolution. This may explain the Grade of “C,” given by Stevenson, to this advertising campaign.

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