1984 No More

There was  a showdown yesterday... Steelers vs. Packers was only a small part of it. This is the time where the ad agencies come out to shine. Many agencies have been built on the notoriety of a single SuperBowl ad.  One of these agencies is Chiat/Day, responsible for the classic "1984" Apple Macintosh commercial. Chiat/Day hung their hat on this ad, and leveraged it to gain many more accounts.

Yesterday, Google took a direct shot at this classic SuperBowl ad, Apple, and Apple users. Was it smart? Take a look.

I thought that this was a fairly clever ad at first. It was an interesting "throwback"  to the classic 1984 ad. 

Here is my problem with it....

It portrays all Apple users as mindless conformist drones. As a recent Apple convert, I had to take offense. I am guessing most of the people who are interested in a tablet, might have some Apple product of some sort... even if it is just an iPod shuffle. 

Rule #1: Don't insult your target market. 

Here is another problem...

Where are the features? If you are going to introduce a product to market, do not show the most boring and obvious features of your product. Show the features that make your product distinctively different than the incumbent. This ad shows that you can look at maps, and view videos on this tablet. Just like the iPad. 

Beautiful concept, poor execution.