Read different: Apple ads in Japan
Last Sunday, they started airing the “Hello, I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC” ads here in Japan. And here’s a surprise: they’re different. The Mac guy isn’t particularly cool and the PC guy is a real “salaryman” type. The ads aren’t as obvious as the Western originals. In Japan, you need to be more subtle:
The conversation translates as follows:
PC:
Nice to meet you, I’m a Pasocon [Personal Computer].
Mac:
Nice to meet you, I’m a Makku [Mac].
PC:
Huh? But you are a Pasocon as well, right?
Mac:
Well, everyone calls me “Makku.”
PC:
That seems to make you kind of special, like a friend.
Mac:
Everyone uses me privately at home. Maybe it’s easier to become my friend.
PC:
I see. I only have business-like acquaintances… I want to be called something special, too.
Mac:
Work acquaintances are your main thing, so… how about Waaku [Work]?
PC:
Makku… and Waaku! Makku!
Same actor? No, they’re the Rahmens, a Japanese comedy duo.
My (Japanese) wife claimed that they used the same actor for both personalities. As I just learned (check comments), that’s not the case, but it doesn’t matter. It’s revealing that she thought so, as it means that the two are perceived by Japanese as being much more similar than their American counterparts.
A suit just means work, casual means leisure
Japanese don’t necessarily judge your character by your clothes. That one wears a suit and the other looks more casual reads differently. A suit means work, casual means leisure. If they wanted to show a cool, stylish guy, they’d pick some out-of-control Harajuku cowboy. But they went for the modest, almost-square Uniqlo type.
Think different, speak different
Good manners for a Japanese wife: “My husband is weak, stupid and fat.” Bad manners: “My husband is strong, smart and handsome.”
The difference is subtle, but in the end it’s quite obvious that the Mac is more sophisticated and a better friend. It’s mostly in his tone, his body language and his non-reaction to embarrassing little signs from Mr. Pasocon.
In Japan, you’re considered particularly dumb and obnoxious if you’re caught bragging about your strengths, and smart and nice if you play them down. The Western Mac ads would backfire in Japan (the Mac would appear to lack class). The Japanese ads wouldn’t work in the West (no real message).
Mac: Sophisticated, humble and controlled. PC: Overly sure of himself and stiff.
Even though the Mac uses the more casual, boyish “boku” when referring to himself, he shows more sophistication than the PC, who uses “watashi” (Japanese have different ways of saying the word “I”).
Self control and sophistication
The Mac guy controls his body language and facial expressions. Japanese manners are all about self control and making the other person feel comfortable. And Internet people can learn a lot from Japanese in that respect. The PC guy starts off very politely and gets more and more excited. He’s very proud of his business acquaintances. Notice the eyebrow when he says “watashi wa [raises eyebrow] businessu like na kankei bakari desukara.” English: “I [eyebrow] only have business-like acquaintances.” In the end, he becomes overly sure of himself and slaps the Mac’s back - in a “let’s be buddies” manner - like he’s in charge.
The Mac reacts as if he didn’t notice the PC’s lack of sense and takes the his little slip with a humble nod and another boyish bow.
Read different
Okay, now that you know that I am aware of the cultural differences, here’s what I really think: Apple underestimates the Japanese sense of humor and - so far - they haven’t used one of their key arguments for the Japanese market.
Please get me right. The ads are not bad, but once again, an ad agency is underestimating the customer, lacks imagination and isn’t reading the signs of the times. I’m not saying I’d make a better ad, I’m just saying you should listen to the client you work for. That way you’ll avoid those silly copyright debates. Steve Jobs pointed out the weakest point of PCs years ago:
So actually, I’m not saying anything new. The main difference between a Mac and a PC is taste. Taste shows itself in the interface through the use of typography. And taste matters. If you know Steve, send him a mail and tell him to look at these sketches:
Steve is more convincing in Japan
To convince Japanese - or Chinese, for that matter - all you have to do is this: show the crappy PC font rendering next to the Mac’s kanji. All the Japanese that have seen this find it spontaneously convincing, as in Japanese it is so obvious: PC font rendering is ridiculous.
The rendering of the typographically more complex kanji characters on the PC is a total nightmare. It’s so obvious, yet nobody really talks about it. The superior font rendering of the Mac is an advantage without whats or ifs. Of course, the conversation would still need to be super polite and understated. Here is what I’d do:
PCからキーボードを打つ安っぽい音が聞こえる。そして、Macからキーボードを打つ心地良い音が聞こえてくる。
PC:
はじめまして。 私はPCです。
Mac:
こんにちは。 僕はMacです。
PC:
ほほー。ずいぶんと洒落たフォントをお使いですね。なんというフォントですか？
Mac:
それほどでもないよ。これはゴシックというフォントだよ。
PC:
そーでしたか。私たち、同じフォントを使っているのですね。
Mac:
そうだけど・・・。
PC:
これは驚いた。私たち、実はものすごく似ているのかも知れませんね。ほら、今じゃどっちも”インテルインサイド”って言いますしね。
Mac:
僕たちが似てないなんて,誰か言ってた？
PC:
よくわかりませんが、私とあなたでは、何かが違っている様な・・・。
Mac:
そうかな？
ボイスオーバー:
ただ、鮮明な文字へ・・・Mac。
Same font, different feeling
I hope to see it animated some day, and if so, before Windows Vista comes out with a new font rendering engine. Few people actually know that Macs render fonts much more smoothly than PCs.
Translation of the font ad
I can hear the PC guy whining like a child: “That’s not true! You’re just some designy idiot!” Okay, let’s go back to Western style: “SHUT UP, PC GUY!” Font rendering is not a designy issue. Nicely rendered fonts are easy to read. Here is the translation of the font ad:
You hear the loud rattling of an old, cheap keyboard (PC) on one side and the delicate clicking of a new keyboard (Mac) on the other.
PC:
Hello, I’m a PC.
Mac:
Nice to meet you, I’m a Mac.
PC:
Wow, what’s that fancy font you have there?
Mac:
Nothing fancy. It’s standard Arial.
PC:
Ah, so we use the same font here.
Mac:
Yeah…
PC:
Wow, we’re really similar now, with the Intel inside and all!
Mac:
Who said we were different?
PC:
I don’t know, somehow you look different…
Mac:
You think so?
Voiceover:
Mac. Clear Text.
The problem is, advertising people don’t know enough about computers and cross platform differences to come up with that idea. But if you’re a web designer confronted daily with PCs destroying typography, or a usability guy sensitive to readability, this is the first thing that comes to your mind. I’ll be more than happy to make a flash animation for Apple Inc. It’ll cost them 1/100th of a regular ad and be 100 times more convincing.
Too daring for Japan? Think again!
If you think that’s too daring for the Japanese customer then please have a look at what they air on national TV. When it comes to humor, Japanese have almost no taboos. Hard Gay is a Japanese comedian who uses a fake hardcore gay identity to uncover taboos. His act quickly gained national attention and popularity. In one of his most famous episodes, he tries to convince the marketing department of Yahoo! Japan to hire him as their mascot. Amazing how far he gets in a country that is famous for its conservative business culture:
Note: a) Japanese believe that Yahoo! is a Japanese company (half true, though). b) Japanese believe that Yahoo! is a better search engine than Google (propaganda). c) Yahoo! Auctions is the No 1 auction site in Japan (eBay has failed).
UPDATE: You might wanna have a look at the front page of the Wall Street Journal; they interviewed us on the very same subject. We know that bragging is bad, especially in Japan, but, please, give us a break and check this out:
11.13.2006
21:29
That’s an awesome idea. If I were in charge of Apple I’d buy that advertisement idea from you and use it in a global marketing campaign.
I enjoy reading your notes, thank you for writing them and sharing!
11.13.2006
21:52
Thanks Feanne. And your drawings are amazing. Guys, stop reading my nerdy texts and have a look at Feannes beautyful work instead:
11.13.2006
23:41
I never realized that subtlety is the way of the competitive game in Japan, but it makes sense since even in traditional Japanese food freshness and subtleness is an art form worth striving for. Considering the group mentality in Japanese culture, it appears as if the modest team player prevails in the end. Even if I could speak Japanese fluently (which unfortunately I can’t), I wouldn’t have picked up the same observation- thanks.
11.14.2006
02:17
Yes, I’ve always wondered how and why Japanese could even stand using Windows. In the Roman alphabet based Windows versions you get at least cleartype which makes it a bit more bearable, but for some idiotic reason Japanese text doesn’t get anti-aliased not even in Vista.
On Windows reading Japanese Text really is hard on the eyes also considering that the default line-spacing is somwhere around 0, almost making the characters of two lines touch each other.
11.14.2006
12:52
the two guys in the ad are Japanese commedians. they are a “combi”, but they’re two different people. i understand your wife; all caucasians look the same to me too.
Rahmens official site: http://www.rahmens.net/top.html
i can’t wait till i see all the other mac ads as well as your “Clear Text ad”. they’re all funny. i bursted out when i saw the US apple’s “network” ad when that Japanese girl was reffering Mr. PC as a nerd.
11.14.2006
13:07
Thanks for clearing that up Tokumeikibou,
I guess my wife needs glasses then. She is Japanese…
Of course she didn’t have the chance to see it many times as we do now. She made that comment after seeing the ad just once. Sundays we watch ウルルン and the following amazing programm introducing Japanese artists. Then we usually switch the TV off for another week…
11.18.2006
02:30
Fascinating. I’d watched one of the Japanese ads, but I totally didn’t pick up on the differences.
I love learning the detail of things like this. Normally, my entire view of the world is shaped by my cultural norms. It’s great to remember that many of them are fairly accidental and arbitrary.
11.18.2006
04:27
Great article. Also nice for me to know that when my lovely japanese wife calls me weak.stupid and fat, its a term of endearment. Or did I misunderstand that point?
11.18.2006
05:42
Fascinating explanation. Thanks so much!
11.18.2006
08:53
Thank you for the insightful explanation, it’s a pleasant surprise to hear advertising in varying cultures:)
11.18.2006
11:19
Brilliant idea-simple, to the point and leaves you wondering, “If it does something as obvious as fonts so well, how else is it better?”
Apple should do it!
And very interesting to read the cultural nuances.
11.18.2006
16:08
“Also nice for me to know that when my lovely japanese wife calls me weak.stupid and fat, its a term of endearment. Or did I misunderstand that point?”
It’s rather that when your wife speaks of you to others in Japanese, any modesty or bragging she applies to you applies to herself as well. If she downplays your qualities, it’s because she’s being modest for the two of you. If she praised you, she’d be praising herself and appear hauty.
Japanese relationships don’t follow the every-man-for-himself paradigm they do in the West.
11.19.2006
00:38
I lived in Japan some 54 years ago, and am by no means an expert in either their language or culture. With a completely different logic system. “Yes, we have no bananas” is completely logical there. I found Japan - traditional Japan - not “just another foreign country” - but instead, “a totally different planet.” A fascinating country. I recall “watashi” as being the feminine form of “I”, “me”, “mine”, while the proper masculine version has the letter “k” in it - ie, “watakshi”. “Boku” was slang or idiom for masculines. This gives the listener an insight as to who the speaker’s teacher (sensei) was. Subtleties have their purpose. Comments are welcome.
11.19.2006
09:49
John,
Seems like you forgot an important use of “watashi” It’s the standard “I” when speaking politely (-mas form). Watakushi is for women and men. It’s very polite. Ore is the macho form. You should only use it if your a) Japanese b) the man c) ready to mess anyone up that doesn’t do what you tell them to do. It works as well if you’re some furyo male teeneager speaking to your friends. Some wild girls (often girls with brothers only) use boku when talking to their friends, but it’s rare and really frowned upon. The most confusing form for me still is when people refer to themselves using their own name (like small kids that haven’t discovered the I yet). I think it’s mainly a girls thing and it’s kind of cute or something. But at this point I always realize that may thinking is still very Western, eventhough in the mean time, with a beer or two I can chatter away like a 7 year old…
11.20.2006
20:01
That is brilliant and an idea that could only come from someone who knows about macs and knows about Japan. One of the barf factors when I have to touch a PC is undoubtedly the font (and yes I use Japanese extensively as well).
It also pays homage to Steve Jobs’ inspiration from calligraphy.
Too bad the higher ups tried to do the disastrous “just translate this ad” strategy which either comes off arrogant or just out of touch (it only works with glamorous ads with zero dialogue in my opinion).
Even putting HG in a Mac ad versus that salaryman would have been better if you ask me.
Isn’t this Dentsu? I think I’ve seen those actors a million times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc6v8IUe_0g
11.21.2006
07:55
All this meant nothing to me until now. I am deaf and depend on Closed Captioning to see what is said on TV ads. So far, Mac has not bothered to CC their ads. I would stage a revolt and use a PC until they do CC, but I like my iMac too much.
11.27.2006
18:08
Well, while I’d agree with most of your analyses, one point of contention I’d like to mention is your assertion about google vs yahoo for japanese searches. Yahoo does give me far better results for Japanese websites than google, (although google is superior for English); and for map searches neither holds a candle to goo.ne.jp which has names for far more obscure buildings (and their outlines even) and can zoom in closer despite lacking satelite for most locations.
11.27.2006
18:17
Thanks, Chris.
You might be right there. I’d still like to call it propaganda because I haven’t seen a single proof that it’s true. Japanese perceive Yahoo as a Japanese company and thus trust it’s search results more. My Japanese is not good enough to check weather that’s true or not by myself.
I remember a Pepsi Coke test for the English Google vs. Yahoo debate where Yahoo scored better s well.
Maybe the search result quality is not everything. Google definitely has a stronger search interface, and a stronger search identity.
Yahoo’s search interface is a mere copy of Google. And that’s usually the death of competitiveness.
I’d be glad to hear more about the Google vs Yahoo comparison though…
11.28.2006
11:02
[…] I ran across an article after my last reply that, in part, mentioned how Macs render text better than a PC. The article deals primarily with Japanese text but it’s the case with standard English as well. I didn’t realize what a difference it would make but I’m hooked. At the risk of sounding like a broken record I’d switch, especially if you can snag a machine near your price point.[…]
11.29.2006
09:15
Here is a comparison of Mac and PC font rendering. If you don’t see the typographical quality comparing the two headlines (look at the edges of the letters), try to read the differently rendered text. You’ll see that the Mac text reads more easily.
This is how PC users see iA by default. Look at the Rea kerning in “Read different”. This might seem a neglectable detail, but it’s little things like that that make text easy to read.
This is how Mac users see iA. It’s not just the anti-aliasing. Compare the rendering of the headlines. PC have a clear type option, but PC clear type for small fonts just makes it all worse.
And this is how PC users see Japanese text (clear type doesn’t work for Japanese characters)
This is how Macintosh users see Japanese text. You don’t need a typographic eye to see the difference. You will easily notice the difference if you can read it.
To get the full effect you need to see the whole page.
11.30.2006
12:49
I think the Mac font rendering is awful and maybe even dangerous to the eyes. If I’m using my Mac my eyes are constantly trying to focus because everything looks blurred. If I switch back later to Windows its like I’ve removed some blurring screen from the monitor and I’m able to finally see clear again.
On the first sight the Max font-rendering looks better, but on the second look its just to uneven: Look at the ‘H’ in the word ‘Home’ for example, the left and right bars of the H have different strengths. And the bottom part of the bottom curve of the ‘S’ in ‘Services’ is to thin compared with other parts of the curve. Etc. All those little errors let the font look kind of ‘restless’. I just can’t stand it.
Sure, the pixelation of the Windows font looks bad on the first sight, but I’ve read whole books on the screen with a PC while I’m getting a headache if I use a Mac for an hour (same lcd-screen). Fonts needs to be as crisp and even as possible (especially small fonts) or your eyes always try to focus (like under low light conditions). Mac goes for style but loses on usability and maybe even risks the health of the user because of increased eyestrain.
11.30.2006
13:45
Wow, Karsten, what a bold statement.
Sounds almost like you’re a typographer. If you were though, you’d notice that they’re not the same fonts and more importantly: You would have noticed the nightmare kerning of the non pixelated PC fonts.
To really test the quality of font rendering let your eyes fly over the two variations, you will notice a stuttering of the eye movement when reading the PC text. While the mac text lets you fly over the lines, the PC font becomes blurry if you red fast.
Not convinced?
You can deactivate antialiasing on a Mac, as much you can activate pixelation on a PC. It is deactivated by default on the PC because the clear type feature makes it even worse. It’s deactivated on a Mac because its antialiasing makes reading easier for fonts over 11px. Apple is really aware on these things.
Not convinced?
Maybe I should take screenshots of anti-aliased PC vs anti-aliased Mac (much better) and pixel PC vs pixel Mac (as good as identical) to make it perfectly clear that PC font rendering sucks big time. The pixelated fonts are pretty much identical and it is true that for most websites pixelated fonts are preferable as most websites use way too small fonts.
But with a decent font size anti-aliased fonts are actually easier to read and that is where the Mac rocks.
Best
Oliver
That vertical H bars don’t render evenly is not an argument, it’s the very nature of antialiasing… Anyway. As soon as you have Vista you hopefully won’t need to defend the undefendable anymore… ; )
11.30.2006
21:41
The Mac font is much fatter so it’s easier to see on the first look. But in the moment my eyes stop and try to focus on a word or a letter the blurring starts to irritate me.
Of course I know the reason for it (antialiasing) and also that font rendering is always a compromise until we finally all have 300dpi+ displays (which would make font antialiasing obsolete). So I think Apple went for style and compromised usability while MS accepted that sharpness is more important even it leads to some pixelisation.
I’m always talking about western fonts, I have no real idea how it workes if I had to read much with japanese fonts which require more small details. But I suspect I would prefer sharpness there too.
Antialiasing does more harm then good if applied to ordinary text. In Windows (as long as you have font antialiasing off. If you turn it on it looks awful too), the horizontal and vertical bars of the fonts are positioned exactly on pixel boundaries, even for most bigger fonts (and of course only for fonts which are designed as screen fonts). The Windows font renderer only blurs the curved lines where is much less visible. So even bigger antialiased fonts look very sharp and the horizontal and vertical bars have all the same strength which makes the text look much more even.
Also the ClearText ‘trick’ creates color fringes which look a bit like on an old CRT monitor with defect convergence. But that also happens (but less strongly) with sharp text because in LCDs the red sub-pixel is always left while the right sub-pixel is blue. That’s the reason I always have at least a 50cm viewing distance because if I’m nearer to the screen the effect is starting to irritate me too (my display as 94dpi). Many people don’t notice that, so I suspect that it has to do something with the individual eyesight.
So I consider the general blurring as much worse. I can stand pixelated text because I’m used to it for years now. But blurring is awful because my eyes always trying to focus without avail and that starts to hurt me after some time. But I suspect people with bad eyesight don’t have those problems because they simply see everything blurred and won’t notice it because of this.
The problem with Macs is that you can’t even switch antialiasing of because the text looks even worse then. Their font renderer (or the hints in the screen fonts) are simply not optimized for non-antialiased text. Designing good screen fonts is quite difficult and in the moment only the Windows designers are doing a good job in this area (On Linux systems the problem is as worse as on Macs).
And yes, I see the kerning differences and of course I dislike the windows one. But I think this has also something to do with antialiasing: The screen fonts are optimized to sharpness and not for pixel correct placement of the letters. This can lead to kerning problems for certain font sizes. If you make the font a bit smaller the kerning problem is gone. Also if you make it a good deal bigger (but only a bit bigger and it looks even worse).
About Vista: I’ve not seen it ‘live’ yet, but from some screen shots I’ve seen the sharpness of the font don’t seem to differ from XP (both with antialiasing off of course). But it’s to early to evaluate the overall quality of the new Vista-fonts.
11.30.2006
22:09
Thanks for that detailed answer Karsten. I am not so sure if we disagree that much. But it certainly looks like an interesting discussion. Let me be short:
We agree:
We disagree:
Who are you by the way? And why do you know so much about font rendering? Are you this guy: http://kawagner.blogspot.com/?
12.1.2006
07:31
I can’t speak about Japanese text because I can’t read Japanese and have thus no experience with reading it with or without antialiasing.
I simply have my experiences with my Mac. I also know another person with similar experiences. Of course two people aren’t enough to be sufficient in a scientific sense, but its a hint that antialiasing can also hurt. I also know people who like anitialiased fonts more, so I think it really depends on the person. OTOH I have still very good eyesight so I suspect that this may play a role here.
When I read fast I still stop from time to time. For example at words I haven’t recognised instantly. Also when I start to read, my eyes first focus on the beginning of the sentence and then start to follow the text. This focusing at the beginning works better and faster with sharp text.
Also it depends on what you read. If I’m reading long text on a web-page or in a pdf-file (which btw is antialiased both on PC and Mac) it’s more reading and less searching so antialiasing doesn’t hurt that much (and may even help, but I’m still sceptical about this). But if I look at Menus, Buttons etc. sharpness is much more important because I search more and read less. The same for programming where I don’t read lines of text at once but ‘jump’ over the page in all directions.
Every time you look at a new position your eyes will try to focus, and antialiasing makes this more difficult or even impossible. If you read text on paper, it’s always crisp and sharp, so the brain simply expect sharpness with texts and uses them to focus the eyes.
I agree that kerning is important. Text looks much better with good kerning, but uneven weighted lines in the text itself will cancel this advantage because the whole text will look uneven now. This happens often because if a bar of a letter isn’t exactly positioned on a pixel boundry (which happens often). Antialiasing is always a compromise, at least as long you can see individual pixels - which I can easily on todays screens.
Of course there are always exceptions: - Moving text has to be antialiased or it will jump badly. - Big text should also be antialiased because the mentioned effects age neglectable because of the size of the letters. - Really small text is unreadable without antialiasing. - ‘Beauty fonts’ needs to be antialiased on todays displays because here style is really more important then readability.
And yes, it’s is my blog, but (in the moment) it’s only about my ideas about programming. I’ve done lots of graphics design too, (I’ve been using DTP since ‘Calamus’ on the Atari ST), and I’m also quite interested in the topic of usabitity.
12.1.2006
12:44
Karsten,
That you and your friend personally prefer non antialiased fonts is one thing, that for the majority of standard-speed readers (not programmers that need to fix on individual letters to find a particular code syntax mistake) reasonably sized Mac antialiased fonts are more convienient to read than PC non aliased or cleartype distorted ones - that is more my point. All I’m saying is that Mac render antialiased fonts nicer and antialiased fonts are preferable for standard readers. Why?
The reason why fast reading is easier with antialiased fonts is the same as the reason why you should use antialiased fonts for animations. The eyes of readers (not programmers) move in quick saccades over the lines, which… Oh, I start repeating myself…
12.9.2006
11:01
From the same guys - how to eat sushi:
12.14.2006
20:19
Video above:
That is a comedy classic!
12.16.2006
22:40
That last video is hilarious. Great post here; Thanks
12.18.2006
21:08
There’s another problem, the Japanese fonts on Windows have almost no leading set as a default, so most texts on Windows are far less readable as Oliver is showing here: just imagine the Text above for Windows with the space between the lines being near zero, they characters almost touch each other.
At least that’s what you get in all text editors and when looking at Web sites that don’t adjust line-width heavily with CSS.
Working with Japanese on Windows is a major pain and it is simply incomprehensible for me why Japanese even put up with it.
1.29.2007
05:52
See the point you are missing here is that the ads were created the way they were because it is against the law to have competitive advertising. You cannot downplay another product. if you say something good about your product comparing it to another, you have to follow it up by saying something good about the other as well. Hence why the Japanese characters look similar. It simply would be illegal to run the western versions in japan.
2.10.2007
17:17
I am actually somewhat surprised that they ran with that add in general. I feel that its considered in very poor taste by Japanese people to compare things directly. Also living in Japan I have rarely seen such calm collected adds. Finally I think that the last thing that went unrecognized is that the “pc” is supposed to be really annoying, and when he uses the phrase “anata mo pasocon desu yo ne?” he is being some what strange; Japanese males don’t use “desu yo” often and many feel that it is effeminate; the ‘ne’ adds to the apparent weakness. Still I am shocked that they didn’t just put a really pretty girl using a computer with some sort of overly cute cartoon character and giant shiny kanji like 90% of the other adds I am used to.
3.31.2007
22:59
Here in the UK they’ve got a very similar set of ads to those in the US.
They don’t work. Here’s why:
http://www.apple.com/uk/getamac/
In the adverts they used the excellent Mitchell and Webb, a comedy duo who made a storm with the critics with Peep Show in (I think) 2001. http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/P/peep_show/index.html
The advertising team evidently watched Peep Show and saw how well Mitchell and Webb suited the characters: David Mitchell as the round, middle-class, geeky Mark and Robert Webb as the thin, trendy, musician Jeremy (’Jez’)
The thing is, they watched Peep Show but didn’t understand it. One of the brilliant parts of the comedy is the fact that you can hear each character’s internal monologue. It turns out the pair share the same insecurities and come up with the same self-centred plots. That is, Jeremy’s chic demeanour is just a front.
The Mac adverts employ much the same characterisation of the two, without getting the subtext. The message to the consumer is ‘Macs think they’re better than they are’.
7.13.2007
02:41
What a fantastic article! Very in depth, I really enjoyed reading it. Though I too found the Mac text examples to be blurry, I sure think it’s stylish and something I could get used to. (Note, I haven’t had any difficulties with text seeming blurry on the macs I’ve used so perhaps it is just the screen shots or the example.) shrug
4.24.2008
14:30
Thanks for posting this - its great to see! I didn’t like the ad when I watched it first time, but after I read your commentary, the comments (and watched the awful mitchell and webb UK versions) and came back to it, I liked it more. Its just taking a simple poke at PCs being for boring business suited class salarymen, and I think its gonna work really well. Steve Jobs has got a really good point about taste, and the Japanese are totally going to watch this ad and, if they’re kids, or semi-casual designer types they’re gonna laugh at “Wakku” and if they’re boring business suited types (many of whom are pitfully insecure I might add) then they’re gonna want to buy a mac - to make themselves seem cooler to themselves and their friends or family.
Really, you can’t fault apple’s strategy, particularly as it seems they’ve already won the battle in the court of public opinion. The only thing that would be more effective than this is just explaining the difference to housewives in simple terms, especially with regard to viruses and spyware - but that wouldn’t be cool now would it? Wives definitely prefer macs. I think that’s a given. They’re cleaner, prettier and neater. No contest.
The font idea is nice though, I hope to see that one day!