Shaq bans all but iPods from Lakers bus!

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vitaboy

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Check out this hot clip from Fox Sports! Apparently Shaq got sick of all the CDs and tapes the other Laker players were carrying around and cluttering up the bus with, and declared you only ride the Lakers bus if you have an iPod. So Fox followed three of the Lakers as they went to the Apple store at the Mall of America to buy iPods.

Apple has got to make this into a commercial. Imagine the PR bonanza of showing the entire L.A. Lakers team jamming to iPods during workouts and practices!

http://homepage.mac.com/aiboards/lakers shopping2.mov

The original news article was posted at MacNN at

http://www.macnn.com/news.php?id=12577
 
that was cool. thanks for sharing!! I might turn into a Shaq fan afterall. I guess i never realized just how smart he really is until now:D
 
The more I think about it, the better it seems: Shaq and the LA Lakers in an Apple commercial. Apple's last dozen commercials or so have been cute and "nice" but have lacked the edge that makes them oh-so-cool.

Imagine a Nike-type commercial set to some blood-quickening hip hop music as Shaq and the rest of the LA Lakers dribble the basketball and do awe-inspiring moves synched to the iPod's beat. The slogan can be "gotta step up the technology."

That would surely have a big effect on a generation of young fans who have no idea who Jeff Goldblum is but would follow Shaq around on a hike through Death Valley. It would instantly make Apple cool in the minds of many, simply by association. It would remove the fear of being labelled as "clueless" by one's peers. I mean, I think the fear of being thought of as dumb for buying Apple gear is what keeps many people from buying Apple. Because you always have to end up defending your decision from the Wintel drones who endlessly harrass you about buying an "obsolete platform with no software." A commercial showing the entire L.A. Lakers working out to iPods would make Apple a "have to have" product line that will be beyond the abilities of any spech-spouting geek to put down.

If Apple is really trying to sell us the digital lifestyle, they have to move away from feel-good advertising to more pulse-quickening Nike type stuff.
 
well, i am no fan of hip hop but i see your point rather vividly. I would say that most people my age who were going to come on board the mac bus did so with Goldblume and the 1st imac. Marketing to the 30 and under group makes more sense at this point and a few good spokespeople like shaq and some current music stars, maybe a cool movie or tv star or two, would go a long way towards that. Hell, with apple's new slogan about mac's being easier, they should probably get Britney Spears to do an ad too while they're at it !
 
Speaking of which, does anyone else think that "Everything is Easier on a Mac" is a kind of lame for a slogan? First of all, it's a mouthful and not very catchy because it seems so blase. I mean, it's 11 syllables! And while ease-of-use is a great point to make, it's not exactly sexy or hard-hitting.

It's just vague in a feel-good sorta way. It's breaks away from the main reason why "Think Different" was so effective - because one is a command or suggestion, the other is a passive statement. So everything is easier on Mac! So what? What does that tell a potential customer he or she should do?

Nike doesn't say, "Doing it is the best way to get things done." They just say, "Just do it."

Sprite doesn't say, "Sprite quenches your thirst the best." They say, "Obey your thirst."

Yahoo! doesn't simply state, "Yahoo! is the best place on the Internet." It asks, in a rhetorical way, "Uhh, do you Yahoo!?"

"Step up to the technology" or some other slogan asking users to act and to participate is what Apple needs to replace "Think Different."

"Everything is easier on a Mac" simply doesn't cut it, IMHO. Hmmm, maybe I should start a new thread in the Open Letters to Apple section.
 
Personally I'll throw my amateur advertising expertise in here... I think they need to pump up the logo and not worry about the name so much. Nike IS the swoosh. They don't say, just do it Nike. It's Just Do It... Swoosh.

If the campaign were the Apple logo and "Everything is Easier" I think it would be a) cooler, b) more effective from a brand recognition standpoint. Everyone knows what the Apple logo is, everyone can pick a Mac out of a lineup. Now get that associated with the simple "Everything is Easier" and you're done.

My $.02
 
Actually, I have to agree that "Everything is Easier" is much better than "Everything is Easier on a Mac."

But still, it bothers me because it doesn't encourage the consumer to do anything. Even when Apple finally introduced CD burners on the iMac, they used the tagline "Rip. Mix. Burn." which I thought was effective because it TOLD people what to do. "Buy this" is more effective than saying "Buying this is good," at least in terms of advertising.

Even with Internet advertising, studies have shown that people respond significantly better when a banner ad says "Click here" or "Check this out" instead of saying "There's some cool stuff here." That's my problem is "Everything is Easier" because it doesn't ask the consumer to do anything. When you hear that, you either agree with it or diagree with it, but that's not what Apple needs. It needs people to go out and buy Apple instead of merely saying, "I wish my Dell was as good-looking as the iMac" or "I wish my Gateway was as easy to use."

"Just Do It" is so effective because it's an imperative. Do it (whatever it is, but we really know it means go out and buy Nike gear), but don't sit there on your butt comptemplating your navel.

My point is, the thing that really struck me in the ad was when one of the Lakers said, "Gotta step up the technology" because his MD player wasn't good enough. Isn't that what Apple is trying to preach? The "good enough" attitude of Wintel isn't good enough! Gotta step it up and settle for nothing less than excellence.
 
Yes, I see your point. I was just saying that there is more promise in the current slogan than initially strikes you.

Apple needs to just air that edited down as a one minute commercial or something. That piece is awesome. They could never do it without bankrupting themselves though, because I imagine getting product endorsement deals from 6 (or however many) different Lakers including Shaq is about impossible. But one could dream. They could hire Shaq as a spokesman and recreate the piece with actors or younger/cheaper Lakers. That might happen.

Step up the technology is cool, but I really don't think Apple's ad firm is going to let something an athlete just blurted out be their slogan,for ego's sake if nothing else.

I also liked the line at the end. Want to ride on the Laker's bus? Got to have top notch technology. Not slogan material, but the kind of public opinion Apple needs to cultivate.
 
Agreed.

But Apple could definitely afford Shaq for a commercial - they have $4.3 billion of cash in the bank, and right now, the rate of inflation is greater than the savings rate, meaning money actually is losing its value if it simply sits in the bank.

But imagine Shaq and the Lakers doing some wild, super complicated basketball moves, while listening to their iPods. An awestruck fan asks, "Wow, how do you do that?" Shaq turns to the fan (actually to the camera) and says, "Hey, everything is easier on a Mac." :p

That would be pretty cool, I have to admit.
 
Actually, a lot of the credit has to go to Laz - he's the one that got me seeing how "Everything is easier on a Mac" might have punch.

Although thinking about it, it would make more sense if Shaq turned to the camera and said, "Hey, everything is easier with a Mac." :p
 
"Apple. Most things are slightly easier on a Mac, some things still need work."

I can see it now...

LOL I somehow doubt that would work. It's sort of like "Windows XP. We think it's good. You may not, but we don't give a damn since we're rich because of you. "

:)
 
I'm going to make a few assumptions, some generalizations, and a waffle. Mmmmm....;)

I'm going to make a guess that much of Apple's pre-existing market share, in the younger demographics, is not all to thrilled with hip-hop, shaq, or basketball in general. Mabey its just me but I don't think that the commercials would stir much up in young people. Remeber, he did give our generation "Kazzam" and many of us have not forgiven him yet.:D

But this could be Apple's point: don't gun for the diehard users anymore, go get the new people. The shaq lovin', basketball shootin', hip-hop groovin' type.

I've managed to contradict myself about 5 times in about 4 sentences so I'm going to cut myself off now.:p
 
testuser: Please. Just because Mac OS X still has a little polishing to do and scanner support to add doesn't mean that most things are still difficult to do. I find that everything just works. My CD burner is supported without any additional drivers for Mac OS X. My microphone is supported without any additional drivers. Same with my printer. If I want to print something, I just set up my printer once, press Command-P and then return all of the rest of the times. If I want to burn a CD, plop in a blank CD into my burner, give it a name and hit "Prepare", copy items to the CD, eject and press "Burn". Boom, done. Connect to an airport network? Go to the Network pane, make sure the Airport network port is active, select an in-range base station. Boom, done -- on the net. What if I want to transfer files to an MP3 player other than my iPod? Launch iTunes, connect the MP3 player, drag-and-drop music to the thing within iTunes, disconnect. Boom, done. Is there a software update available? Great! Go to your Software Update pane, click Update now, select the items you want to install, press the install button, go do your other stuff, go back to Software Update when you see the bouncing icon, press the restart button. Boom, done.

Seriously, what more do you want? Do you want to plug in the MP3 player, think which music files you want to transfer over, disconnect it and have all the files transferred already? Do you want to put in a CD, say to your computer "Transfer all important personal files to this CD" and expect it to be done and burned in 5 seconds?

Oh, and about that filename extension thing? That's been beaten to death; Mac OS X's metadeta support is hands down better than OS 9, especially since it DOES STILL USE TYPE/CREATOR CODES in addition to filename extensions.

Sure, it would be nice to have built-in scanner support and an iScan iApp, but give Apple a fuckin' break! They did the impossible -- they merged the power of UNIX with the simplicity of Macintosh, and let me tell you: Mac OS X has sure made my life a WHOLE lot simpler.

Remember one thing: Apple is doing you a COURTESY to provide all of those built-in drivers for third-party products. Did Apple do that in OS 9? HELL no. If you really want your scanner to work with OS X, yell at the developers... don't give Apple flak because they haven't added the drivers for them. I DO understand your argument about not being able to reinstall over newer versions of the operating system, and I do hope that they will get their act together with the installer and the updating-rigidness issue (with keeping apps in their respective folders). But Mac OS X on the whole is a whole bunch better and simpler than OS 9, and that's indisputable.
 
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