Switch campaign... real "actors"...

P

pezagent

Banned
FYI-- for all those who think I'm just here to "bash" Apple, I'm not--I just like putting things in perspective. One of the things that's talked alot about in this place are the switch ads, and if you've read my posts you know I hate them... like others in here I don't think they're very effective.

Something that bugs me about Apple is they're always using sneaky ways to advertise their products. The new switch campaigns feature real stories, for example,but not real people. All you Ellen fans will be dissapointed to know that your Apple babe is a talented young actor...

I'm only mentioning this because a lot of people in here seem to think these people are real--and of course, that's the whole point. You're not going to be able to tell these people from your regular ad folks--they've been instructed to be as real as possible. I heard that during casting they found actors with "as little experience" as possible to give it that "real" edge.
 
How this for perspective?

Several friends of mine, all PC users, who have seen a couple of the ads, are now very interested in Apple. The ads drove them to the local mall to check out the new Apple store. The store showed them the advantages of Macs first hand. Two of those friends bought Macs. A third, bought a Dell. He hasn't even taken delivery of the damn thing yet and he's already second guessing his choice.

Seems to be working quite well, but I guess we'll have to wait for the stats to come through in a couple of months to see for sure.
 
Originally posted by BlingBling 3k12
http://homepage.mac.com/adamsa/

Aaron Adams, Windows LAN Administrator

Switcher Guy

REAL PERSON

Plus, he just redid his site, where it used to be an explination that the commercials were real.
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Where's the actual proof that Aaron is a real person? Do you have his birth certificate?

I'll prove it to you. Email Aaron and ask him for a copy of his resume. If he sends it to you, contact some of the places he's worked for and ask them to describe Aaron--specifically how much Aaron weighs.

BTW, if you examine all the real-world stories, they're all a little "too perfect"...
Over the months, more and more software became available for X. I learned quite a bit about Unix. Never once did my iBook crash. Never once was any of my data corrupted by an errant application or system failure. Never once was there a catastrophic event of some kind that forced me to reinstall my OS. Every update worked perfectly, and X got better and better with every release, especially 10.1.
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If you think that's just "jazzed" up by the Apple people, think again. It was entirely constructed by the ad agency. Really, if you can't tell that this is all just a bunch of hyperbole disguised as reality, then there may be no hope.
 
Jeezuz get over it pezagent... think back to the heady days of XP commercials, remember, we could all fly if we used it!:D :eek: (Yeah, straight to the nearest Apple Store!)

How often do you drink Coca-cola, and they claim it'll improve your life no end. Welcome to the world of marketing, I'm surprised you hadn't noticed it earlier.

And as for actor claims... it takes a good one to act like an authetic everyday person... the bad ones r-e-a-d t-h-e-i-r- l-i-n-e-s like that!:D
 
Perhaps an explanation is in order...

Advertising 101

Let's say you come up with the idea for the Switch campaign. Your basic need is to find a bunch of stories about real people who switched to Mac, then put them in a television ad, right? Seems pretty simple. Oh, but wait a minute. We need to diversify those stories across the board, so they appeal to certain age groups and ethnic backgrounds. Ok, no problem, right?

Apple wants us to believe that their creative team went out and found a diverse group of people across America that could write real stories about themselves, sit in front of a television commercial and tell their story. Not only that, but these people would be willing to become .Mac users, and post their stories on-line for everyone to see, be politically correct at all times, and never say a bad thing about Apple again.

It was one thing when Subway found Jarrod. That's one guy--and he found them. Apple's case is a different story--they had to "reverse engineer" their case studies. I don't know if people here know how much time and effort goes into an ad campaign, but it's an f-load. If you think for one moment that Apple waited around until it got "just the right" people for this campaign, you're definately an advertisers wet-dream, because you believe everything you see and hear. The fact is, Apple only claims these are real stories. Just like actors on TV, they don't have to tell you that these people are only portraying real people unless somebody really kicks up a fuss.

When I first started in television a long time ago, my boss, a director, pitched this idea to Fox television... his idea was to have a game show host dress up like a clown and really give it to the contestants on a daily basis. (I didn't say he was a good director) Anyway, the Fox executive vetoed the idea... only becuase he knew that for a game show host to stay in character to tape five shows a day would be murder. This leads me to an important giveaway that the Switch campaign is a fake... if these were "real people", what guarantee would Apple have for these people to stick around and love Apple for the rest of their lives? Answer: They wouldn't. The golden rule here is that the company, Apple, has to maintain control over what these people say and do, and it would be impossible to find so many people over so many ethnic backgrounds to stay in "loyal" character. If Apple had just shot some real people that would have been fine, but to post these elaborate stories and then have these people post BLOGS and such... it's just too over the top. It reminds me of a kind of music industry promotion, where you hear rumors of artists doing stupid things right before their new album comes out.

I hope this sheds some light on reality for some people.

:)
 
As I said, we all pretty much know how marketing and advertising works... what baffles me is that you have the time to rant about something that you don't like.

Wrong, side and bed are three words that come to mind.

As people on this board have stated, Apple quite often get their marketing wrong, and this perhaps isn't the first time.

But there's no real need to get upset about something that every company does everyday of the year, not just your hated Apple.
 
Originally posted by uoba
Jeezuz get over it pezagent... think back to the heady days of XP commercials, remember, we could all fly if we used it!:D :eek: (Yeah, straight to the nearest Apple Store!)

How often do you drink Coca-cola, and they claim it'll improve your life no end. Welcome to the world of marketing, I'm surprised you hadn't noticed it earlier.

And as for actor claims... it takes a good one to act like an authetic everyday person... the bad ones r-e-a-d t-h-e-i-r- l-i-n-e-s like that!:D
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Hey, well check out this "BLOG" that's on one of the sites:

Yet another user comes to his senses

I was just in a gentleman's office fixing his Groupwise hang problem and upadting his Novell client. We talked about what was causing his troubles here at work, and he told me he had a Pentium III at home. He said, "I'm tired of what I have to go through to keep that thing working all the time. I'm considering getting a Mac." He has no clue that I do any advertising for Apple. Of course, I told him to go ahead and get one, and I mentioned the 17" iMac that should be arriving at my door any time now.


That's twice in as many weeks that someone here at the hospital, who has no idea I'm involved with Apple, has said to me that they want to dump their Wintel for a Mac. Could it be that the switch ads might be working? I dunno, my experience is hardly a representative sample of people here at the hospital, much less the country. It makes me feel a little better to think the ads have something to do with it tho :)



-- posted by Aaron Adams at 10:15 AM
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I've had the unfortunate opportunity to work on a Phillip Morris before (sorry, I needed the money) and I learned a great deal about how crafty ad agencies can be when the need to "bend" the world to their favor--it took a long time for people to blow the whistle on the "stop smoking" ads for kids which actually made kids want to smoke more, according to one article I read in not so many words. But of course, ad agencies aren't dumb, and they knew that would happen all along, the whole thing made me toss my cookies. I guess this Apple Switch campaign is really buggin' me out because it's just as underhanded. Every other entry "Aaron" puts in his Blog is a plug for Apple products (the iPod) or like the one above, about how people just suddenly start talking about switching computers. Somehow I don't think we'll ever see "I just broke up with my girl" or "Sh*t I just paid for my first hooker" entries in Aaron's BLOG... unless of course, Apple gets wind that people are getting soopy at which point a carefully placed tragedy or something like his grandmother dying will excuse him from further responsiblity to posting on his Blog.

(man, i think too much)

:p
 
Originally posted by uoba
As I said, we all pretty much know how marketing and advertising works... what baffles me is that you have the time to rant about something that you don't like.

Wrong, side and bed are three words that come to mind.

As people on this board have stated, Apple quite often get their marketing wrong, and this perhaps isn't the first time.

But there's no real need to get upset about something that every company does everyday of the year, not just your hated Apple.
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Well, I'm 32, retired, and living in New Zealand, and haven't figured out what the hell I should do with the rest of my life. This Apple stuff bugs me from time to time so I come here to let it all out. As far as hating Apple, it's like this--you always hurt the ones you love...
 
Originally posted by serpicolugnut
How this for perspective?

Several friends of mine, all PC users, who have seen a couple of the ads, are now very interested in Apple. The ads drove them to the local mall to check out the new Apple store. The store showed them the advantages of Macs first hand. Two of those friends bought Macs. A third, bought a Dell. He hasn't even taken delivery of the damn thing yet and he's already second guessing his choice.

Seems to be working quite well, but I guess we'll have to wait for the stats to come through in a couple of months to see for sure.
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He's second-guessing his choice because of delivery times? When the Apple store first opened up a million years ago and I bought a 9600 from them, it took them forever to deliver it to me. Then the damn thing had a used mouse in it! Apple didn't do anything until I bitched on Macintouch. A used mouse... couldn't believe it.

Oh sorry, um, let me switch to a more positive response... cool, man, bitchin! Go Mac! Kick Wintel's ass! Yeah!
 
Yeah yeah, guerilla marketing and all that, subliminal messaging as well.

I must admit, the homepage.mac.com job doesn't convince me, but I really don't care about Apple's marketing, mainly because it has been inherantly bad for years. And the switch ads are another half-hearted attempt in my opinion.

The 1984 ad is the only ad I have ever liked from them.

OSX, a great system, but how many tv ad's have you actually seen it on!?
Anyway, I'm gonna start sounding like you pezagent:p

:rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by uoba
32 and retired, and your moaning so much... people don't know when life is sweet;)
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LOL... yeah, well, it's not as sweet as you might think... people need stuff to do, ya know? You think when you get your ducks in a row that the sunset is somehow more beautiful, but I'm too young to be sittin' around with nuthin' to do all day. My wife wants to travel and we're thinkin' about movin' back to the States but heck I have no idea... my father-in-law had this problem when he sold his first business so within two weeks he started another company. Ug.

Anyway, thanks for listening. It's nice to type it out with complete strangers sometimes...
 
Originally posted by uoba
The 1984 ad is the only ad I have ever liked from them.

OSX, a great system, but how many tv ad's have you actually seen it on!?
Anyway, I'm gonna start sounding like you pezagent:p

:rolleyes:
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Ridley Scott rules!!! He's one of my classic fav directors, when Blade Runner was released on video, I got the VHS, Beta, and 8MM (!) copies. It's funny you should mention that commercial, because I was just thinking how Mac seems to be still stuck back there in 1984 in some ways... like thinking the very people they helped get into computers are idiots or something. It's like a parent not willing to accept that thier children got a better education than they did...

Speaking of parenting and way off-topic, I suspect that's a picture of your newborn? My wife's a childcare specialist, she loves kids, and both my sister AND sister-in-law are due in November. Congrats! (Of course, if it's just a picture of a baby, disregard this whole thing...)
 
Yep, you're right, it's Tomás, now 5 weeks old (and nearly 6kg!!);) Cheers:D

He had a few words for you, but I better not print them:D :D :D


As for retirement, I know how you feel, I occassionally get a weekend off and am clueless to what I should do with myself (Tomás solved that one!:rolleyes: )
 
You are wrong about the switchers being actors. Aaron Adams is in the "yourmaclife" chatroom every wednesday night during Shawn King's fantastic Your Mac Life internet radio show (www.yourmaclife.com) If you look in the archives, you can hear the shows that contained interviews from some of the switchers. Aaron was one of them, and you will recognize his voice as soon as the interview starts. And yes, it's live. Shawn King and the gang from YML all went to MacWorld NY this year and Aaron was among their crew this year. Look at the pictures, and you will see that they are hanging out with the guy from the commercial. Why? Well because that IS Aaron Adams! Hopefully this proves it for you, but if you need more proof you can go to apple.com and watch the keynote over again where you can see Ellen and Hamilton sitting together in the audience before the show starts (they are for some reason playing cats cradle, that weird little string tangled up in ones hands thingy). And what do you know, they are the same people from the commercial! ASTONISHING! Well, if this doesn't settle you down and convince you you could always go to yourmaclife.com on a wednesday night, tune into the show, come to the irc chat and as Aaron Adams himself! --Ryan
 
Originally posted by RyanLang
You are wrong about the switchers being actors. Aaron Adams is in the "yourmaclife" chatroom every wednesday night during Shawn King's fantastic Your Mac Life internet radio show (www.yourmaclife.com) If you look in the archives, you can hear the shows that contained interviews from some of the switchers. Aaron was one of them, and you will recognize his voice as soon as the interview starts. And yes, it's live. Shawn King and the gang from YML all went to MacWorld NY this year and Aaron was among their crew this year. Look at the pictures, and you will see that they are hanging out with the guy from the commercial. Why? Well because that IS Aaron Adams! Hopefully this proves it for you, but if you need more proof you can go to apple.com and watch the keynote over again where you can see Ellen and Hamilton sitting together in the audience before the show starts (they are for some reason playing cats cradle, that weird little string tangled up in ones hands thingy). And what do you know, they are the same people from the commercial! ASTONISHING! Well, if this doesn't settle you down and convince you you could always go to yourmaclife.com on a wednesday night, tune into the show, come to the irc chat and as Aaron Adams himself! --Ryan
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OK, so like, these people couldn't possibly be actors because why? They show up at MacWorld?

You ever see mascots at a basketball game?

The fact that you were able to notice these people playing "cats cradle" or whtever is a great touch, don't you think? I'm not saying that these actors aren't real or that they're not exhibiting their personalities, but please, wake up and smell the reality here.
 
Hey pezagent, not everything is a conspiracy you know... just because you have an agression with Apple doesn't mean you can just come over and say that everything Apple does is fake, their switchers campaign is fake, everything we've ever been taught is a lie, everything that we know does not conform to the thoughts of one retired 32 year old that obviously has too much time on his hands, but just enough to rant about how Apple is just a big conspiracy and piss off people like me (a PC user who has never had a Mac until last Thursday, and switched due to a major part that I was pissed off at the way Windows DIDN'T work)

You know, maybe it is fake, but then why would they have asked Mac users to voluntarily send in their switch stories months ago? You don't think they could have pulled out 8 or so stories, got people to come in and speak about it?

Yes, Ellen Feiss does make the ad's look pretty stupid, considering her IQ is probably lower than mine, which btw, is pretty damn high.

Now, If I was on the switchers campaign... you probably wouldn't believe it, even if I was right in front of you, telling you that, had a birth certificate in my hand, a resume in the other, and a website with a blog about how I love Apple so much... you probably wouldn't... and that's fine, but damn man, don't think everything on television or everything that a company does is fake. Yes, I know alot of stuff on TV is fake, and I know alot of companies do some really bad crappy advertising spots.

Hell, I love Apple, and I wouldn't mind trying to convince people to buy their products! I've already sold my neighbor and a friend on getting new iMacs, way before I even got one!

I also see you're still a Mac (L)User, but all I see you do is rant about how you hate Apple!

Honestly, there's just too much crap for me to go through right now to make a justified answer to everything on here... this is just the tip of the iceberg and when I get the time (after I persue the rest of my daily life, instead of wondering what the hell to do with it because I retired alot earlier than everyone but still am perplexed on what to do)

I'll see you after I get done having fun... not just sitting around thinking about what I can possibly rant on about because I didn't like my experience with Apple products...

And by the way, if you don't like their products or the experience you got from them, why the hell do you come here to throw off your agression... move on and don't come here just to feel better about yourself. Don't use them if you don't like them! It's obvious you don't like an aspect of it...
 
is it obvious that Casey's ibook didn't arrive today? :D

i think we need to start a 'work off your frustrations' forum and throw pezagent and BB into the first thread. ;)

(hopefully it will show tomorrow Casey :) )
 
You are all wrong. The switchers are real weather you care to agree or not. If you want proof you should simply watch Shawn King's coverage of Macworld New York. Not only does this video take you inside Steve's unveiling of the SoHo Store (where you see many celebrities of the mac geek world!) but it also will give you proof of the fact that the switchers are indeed real (you'll see shawn and aaron hanging out a lot since he went on the trip with the whole yourmaclife gang.) Here is the link, enjoy

http://www.yourmaclife.com/subpages/qt/YMLX072902s.mov

-Ryan :)
 
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