Microsoft - I’m a PC | TV's Worst Adverts

Microsoft - I’m a PC

2 December 2008 by Silky

As any sane person knows everyone alive today can be split into two categories: PC or Mac.

And on the off chance that you’re not sure which you are I’ve knocked together a handy check list.

You’re a Mac if all of the following:

You work in Graphic Design.
You wear t-shirts with ironic slogans on them that would make a non-Mac look like a complete knob.
You’re currently sleeping with 5 people at the same time. At least 3 of them are models - but all of them are perfectly happy with the arrangement.
You live in the gay quarter of either Manchester or Bristol - even though you’re 80% sure you’re not gay. Well, 65% sure.
You’re far too cock-achingly cool to be reading TV’s Worst Adverts.

You’re a PC if you’re any of the following:

Not all of the Mac ones above.

Now Apple, being the wily advertiser that they are, realised that the “I’m a Mac” list was kind of restricting it’s customer base. So they expanded what “being a Mac” meant to the far more inclusive “anyone who isn’t David Mitchell“.

But this was a smite too far for Microsoft.

“How dare they insinuate that PC users aren’t cool and in some way all still live with their mums” - I suspect the Microsoft senior management said at their weekly Connect 4 championship.

So they decided to get their own back with their series of “I’m a PC” adverts. Yeah, Microsoft were going to give Apple a bitch slap they wouldn’t soon forget:

Except, and I’m sure this will amaze you as much as it amazes me, in making these adverts Microsoft have taken one of Apple’s ideas and made it very, very nerdy and many, many times shitter.

Who would have thunk it?

Of course, one of the main problems with these advert’s pathetic attempt at portraying PC users as some kind breed of uber-Fonzies, lies with the fact that PCs aren’t sexy or cool.

PC’s are - and hold the front page for this one - functional and dull.

And there are few things nerdier than nerds trying to be cool. In fact these Microsoft ads miss the mark so much - one of them even features Bill, for funk’s sake - that they make David Mitchell’s character from the Apple adverts seem like Justin Timberlake.

So come on Microsoft, stop trying to be cool and keep doing what you’re good at: Add a few more functions to Excel so I can get my accounts done!

Just How Bad is this Ad?

10 Votes

Loading ...

10Responses:

Donald Rush

Said on the 2 December 2008

Great post. I agree totally. I am glad that the designers in the UK are still using Mac. I used to read Computer Arts Mag and it is seemed like they used pc as the default and would show mac commands as the alternative.
Silky

Said on the 2 December 2008

Thanks for that, Donald, glad you liked it.

I’m fairly certain that the rule is: if you don’t use a Mac, you’re not a proper designer.

I haven’t read Computer Arts recently but I know a lot of the Web design mags here in the UK never even mention Mac commands. Which, if the above rule is applied, speaks volumes about Web design.
Mike Empuria

Said on the 2 December 2008

i haven’t read this yet. I will do. Promise!

I just think you need to expand the horizons of your self imposed brief.

I was just watching BBC weather and the man said that there’s going to be a “Disruptive Snowfall Event”

Need I say more?
Silky

Said on the 2 December 2008

Ha, yea, like it, Mike.

I dare say there’ll be a DSE Solution appearing in Private Eye soon enough too

Now, get reading!
Hannah

Said on the 2 December 2008

The ad’s crap if for no other reason than it sounds like some of them are saying ‘I’m a Pissy’.
I use a Mac by the way and don’t fit any of those descriptions…
Oh, and has anyone actually e mailed Bill…?
Silky

Said on the 2 December 2008

“I use a Mac by the way and don’t fit any of those descriptions…”

Unless you’re actually David Mitchell you should be fine, Hannah
Mike Empuria

Said on the 4 December 2008

Oh that is bad.
Mike Empuria

Said on the 4 December 2008

PS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L2fsubA2-c

Someone had to post it.
Mike Empuria

Said on the 4 December 2008

PPs

And these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZGIn9bpALo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poREl_EVWXI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL2l_Q1AR_Q&feature=related
jonty

Said on the 2 January 2009

im a pc and im a fat fuckin cunt who sits on my arse all day watchin fuked up things called whothefukami.com and dwarffights.com while stuffing my face full of doritos and coke on my big fat fukin chair with no bloody wheels i can spin around on cause they broke around 3 months ago cause im so fukin fat they snapped off…

and tht why im a pc

btw tht was a joke i just think they should do one like tht