I'm a PC
"I'm a PC" (also known as Pride) is a television advertising campaign created for Microsoft by ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CPB). The series first began to appear in September, 2008.[1][2][3] The new series of commercials replace those that featured the pairing of Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates.
The $300 million advertising campaign was designed to challenge Apple's Get a Mac campaign, in which a Microsoft Windows PC is personified as an uninteresting office employee overly concerned with work, by showing everyday people to be PC users, thus breaking the perceived stereotype depicted in the Get a Mac commercials.[4]
Campaign
[edit]The ad series features prominent and popular individuals saying "I'm a PC" and has appearances by common international users as well as personalities such as writer Deepak Chopra, mixed martial artist Rashad Evans, actress Eva Longoria, photographer Geoff Green and singer Pharrell Williams.
The campaign was created by the CPB advertising agency and exhibited normal PC users to be found everywhere. It was the second phase of Microsoft's 2008 efforts to displace the ubiquity of Apple's "Get a Mac" ads, which portrayed the Mac as "cool and intuitive" and the PC as "boring and clunky".[4] The Microsoft spots typically opened with an image of Sean Siler,[5] an actual Microsoft employee dressed as John Hodgman's personification of a PC stating lines such as "I'm a PC, and I've been made into a stereotype" and "I'm a PC, and I am not alone."
The composition was initially made to resemble that of the Apple campaign, as Siler resembles Hodgman, the "PC" counterpart to Justin Long as a Mac in the Apple commercials.[2][6]
The advertisements are also interspersed with various non-famous users who proclaim "I'm a PC" from a variety of places and in a number of methods. The intent is to demonstrate how PC users are ordinary people.[7]
Windows 7
[edit]Touting the then-upcoming Windows 7 as Microsoft's best ever operating system, Steve Ballmer said during his CES 2009 presentation "That's why we say, 'I'm a PC and proud of it'!".[8]
Upon the release of Windows 7, Microsoft aired several advertisements under this campaign demonstrating the features of their new operating system. The ads typically focus on one person and end with the tagline "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea."
References
[edit]- ^ Carlson, Nicholas (19 September 2008). "Microsoft's new "I'm a PC" commercials want you to "Think Different"". Valleywag. Archived from the original on 30 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
- ^ a b Keizer, Gregg (18 September 2008). "Microsoft's 'I'm a PC' ad images made on Macs". Computerworld. Archived from the original on 23 September 2008.
- ^ "Microsoft ad campaign: I'm a PC, declared with pride". The Guardian. 19 September 2008. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
- ^ a b Moses, Asher (25 September 2008). "New Microsoft ads made on a Mac". TheVine. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011.
- ^ Wilson, Mark (19 September 2008). "So What's Up With That New 'I'm a PC' Guy, Anyway?". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on 26 August 2017.
- ^ "Magazine: Microsoft ad uses Mac software". UPI. 21 September 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
- ^ "'I'm a PC' ad pictures made on a Mac". MacNN. 22 September 2008. Archived from the original on 6 May 2016.
- ^ Griggs, Brandon (8 January 2009). "Microsoft's Ballmer touts 'best version of Windows ever'". CNN Edition. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
