Dipswitch said:
Dude, you're stretching big time here. The laptop that's displayed is largely irrelevant (It looks like a 15" Macbook Pro to me personally, but whatever).
The laptop that is displayed when the voiceover says "
This Mac is $2000," is irrelevant?
Huh? What planet do you live on?
And the fact that they are showing a 13" MacBook is NOT "irrelevant" as you claim, because THAT WAS APPLE'S BEST-SELLING NOTBOOK AT THE TIME OF THE AD. The 15" MacBookPro wasn't selling nearly as much as the 13" MacBook. That's why the 13" MacBook was probably shown and targeted.
And it clearly isn't a 15" MacBook Pro at the 20 second mark where the voiceover says "This Mac is $2000." MacBook Pros say "MacBook Pro" on them. This one says "MacBook" only. At the time of the ad, neither a 15" MacBook, nor a 13" MacBookPro existed. They simply weren't in the Apple retail lineup.
Dipswitch said:
It's the item description/pricetag that's relevant.
So you expect people to ignore the fraudulent voiceover saying "This Mac is $2000" pointing to the 13" MacBook, and instead concentrate on the switched pricetag, noticing that it is referring to a different computer?
Dipswitch said:
That's what people are going to use to compare prices. And that laptop is still $1699. The contortions you are going through to try and prove that MS tried to imply the 13" was $2,000 don't hold much weight frankly.
I'm going through contortions?
No I'm not...I'm just showing THEIR VIDEO, where the voicover says, plainly, "This Mac is $2000" while a 13" MacBook is shown.
You are going through contortions and being the apologist here.
Dipswitch said:
Actually, you have no idea which commercial Apple complained about. None of us do, because Kevin Turner didn't say. For all you know, he could have been referring to the other Lauren ad where she refers to the cheapest Macbook they had at the time, which was the 13" model. And at the time the ad was launched, I believe that model retailed for $1099. It's now $999, which is $100 less.
It's true that I don't know which commercial is drawing the complaint. But I think it's probably fair to assume that the ad with the most obvious, glaring deception is probably drawing ire with Apple's legal department, don't you?
So, what you are saying is that it could be another deceptive ad instead of this one? That certainly may be true, considering the staged "visit" to the Apple Store that never happened from the first ad, but I don't see how that helps your defense of Microsoft here...
Dipswitch said:
]I think this is more a case of you "interpreting" his comments to fit your conclusion. You could just as easily argue that what he said was 100% true. And yes, the prices have dropped now.
Sure you could "just as easily argue that what he said was 100% true." Fine, you choose to "interpret" the the man who is laughing about the fact that his company is producing deceptive ads to make him seem like a super guy and not another corporate shill trying to change the subject rather than get people to look at the real problem. I won't.
If you want to approach it as "who do you believe?" then I guess It's a difference of opinion and interpretation. I don't see why my opinion/interpretation gets so much hate.
I'm simply pointing out how a reasonable person could conclude that the consumer is being deceived by this ad. Check my posts here. That's how I got involved in this thread in the first place. Too many posters were just ignoring the very real complaints and problems with that ads as if they didn't exist, calling the complain "nonsense," when there clearly is evidence that the complaint is far more than just "nonsense." There clearly are problems in the ad in question that should be cleared up by Microsoft in the interest of dealing honestly with the consumer in their advertising. It is not in Microsoft's interest to be perceived as deceptive. Chief executives making jokes about legit complaints of deceptive advertising practices do not send a good message.
Dipswitch said:
Ultimately though, the core point of the commercials has not changed - that is, that you can get a decent laptop for hundreds less than what Apple charges. Legally, I don't think Apple has much ground to stand on.
Uh, when a voiceover in an ad says "This Mac is $2000" while pointing out a computer that never sold for anything close to $2000, there
is some ground there.
Look, I'm not new to the world of advertising. As a photographer, I deal with this sort of thing often. (Although not often enough in this economy.) Ad agencies and clients are super-anal about everything that goes into an ad. You can be sued for far less. I've had to re-shoot a cellphone because a switch moved 1/16th of an inch from prototype to production model. I've had to re-shoot an entire menu for a major restaurant chain because they were worried they would get sued because all the restaurants didn't have the plates we used in the photographs. The food and lighting didn't change at all. (It didn't bother me, since it was a paid re-shoot, but it cost the company thousands of dollars.) Hell, the amount of legal "cover your ass" moves that occur on in a food or beverage shoot alone (where pretty much everybody knows the food is never going to look THAT good in real-life) would make you glaze over.
I will say this too: CPB is a fantastic ad agency. (So is TBWA on the Apple side.) Super creatives over there. They are very detail-oriented too. It's impossible to believe that this was a slip-up by a cameraman or editor. Every frame of that video was scrutinized before it went out. I think this was an aggressive move, but a calculated one, not unlike what they have done in the past with other brands. However, this aggressive move is different, because it plays pretty "fast-and-loose" with the facts. Personally, I'm surprised they tried to pull it off, because people spotted the fake "Apple Store visit" in the first ad pretty quickly. Maybe the ad was already in the can by that time...who knows. One thing's for sure: If you visit their webpage, they are very proud of the "Apple wants the ads pulled" story, so they must not be too worried, at least not publically.
