By this point, 99% of you have probably seen the "Get a Mac" ads where the Mac (Justin Long) proves in 30 seconds how he's clearly superior to the PC (John Hodgman) in every way. The result: an advertising hit.
For years, Microsoft either never responded or put together ads that didn't resonate with the public (do you remember those Seinfeld-Gates ads from last year? Yeah, I've tried to block those out too). However, its most recent ad campaign, "Laptop Hunters," has been gaining traction.
In fact, it's been so effective that apparently Apple's legal department called Microsoft and asked them to stop running the ads.
Apple Calls, Microsoft Does Cartwheels
According to Ars Technica, Microsoft's COO Kevin Turner not only revealed that Microsoft stores are coming this fall, but offered a nice tidbit about Apple calling him two weeks ago. In short, they told him that the ads are inaccurate and needed to be pulled. The following is from the transcript of Mr. Turner's keynote:
And you know why I know [the commercials are] working? Because 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. (Applause.)
I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, "Is this a joke? Who are you?" Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we're just going to keep running them and running them and running them.
Clearly, Microsoft's COO might be taking a few liberties, but it was probably a bad move by Apple to make that phone call, even if the ads are slightly less accurate than they were before Apple made its price cuts.