Minority Report: Laptop Hunters on a par with drunken uncles

Rather than championing Windows, Microsoft's latest TV ads reveal the company's deep insecurities about its own products, says Seb Janacek.

In recent years Apple's advertising strategy has been spearheaded by the Get a Mac ads, amusing little skits between an anthropomorphised Mac and PC, with the Mac always coming up on top through better features and a cool, if somewhat smug, demeanour. The 'cool' bit is important.

By comparison, Microsoft's own marketing has lurched from lows to highs and recently back to the bottom of the barrel.

The Gates and Seinfeld ads were amusing, surreal and hopelessly out of touch. The 'I'm a PC' ads were good and celebrated the diversity of PC users, even adding a dose of glamour thanks to a sprinkling of celebs.

Most recently, we have the Laptop Hunters series. The scenario: Microsoft offers a sum of money (between $1,000 and $1,500) to a person off the street (aka actor) to buy a laptop. Whatever they don't spend from the total they can keep.

In each of the three ads aired so far, Macs are rejected and derided in favour of a couple of HP machines and a Sony.

The Laptop Hunter ads are interesting for a number of reasons - primarily because they're more about Apple than they are about Microsoft.

Unlike Apple's advertising, which focuses on why Macs are better than PCs, Microsoft's ads don't explain why PCs are inherently better than Macs. In fact, they have nothing to say about Windows, instead pointing to hardware - mostly screen size and RAM - and price as the reasons the Laptop Hunters choose PCs over Macs.

There's a key message running through each Laptop Hunter ad.

"I guess I'm just not 'cool' enough to be a Mac person," says chic Lauren after she's decided the Macbooks are too expensive for her.

"They're way too much money, dude," says an eye-rolling soccer mom to her 11-year-old son, adding, "Macs are popular with kids his age".

Meanwhile, tech-savvy Giampaolo utters: "I don't want to pay for the brand. I want to pay for the computer."

At the heart of these ads is a bit of Microsoft-commissioned research called 'What Price Cool?' which concentrates on the so-called 'Apple Tax'.

The Apple Tax, according to Microsoft, is what Mac users pay in hidden costs for their 'cool' computing experience.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been making similar noises about the premium that Apple customers pay on each Mac, a premium which he says "just buys you a logo".

The What Price Cool? report is hilarious.

The report's author attacks the idea that Macs are inherently more 'cool' than PCs. By its nature, cool is a difficult thing to define but the report describes it as "that diaphanous, ephemeral quality".

He also provides a potted history of personal computing: "Microsoft and Apple took divergent approaches to building a platform. Microsoft worked with partners to provide the widest range of choice possible. Apple kept control of the whole stack from top to bottom."

Lest it be forgotten: Microsoft is a software company. Apple is a hardware company that happens to make its own software. So of course Microsoft needs hardware partners. Its business model is all about licensing; Apple's is most certainly not.

But back to the report… not only are Apple's prices higher but "anyone migrating to Mac may have to rebuy software, pay for expensive add-ons, and miss out on cool new technologies". Same could be said for anyone switching from a Mac to a PC. But I guess that "diaphanous, ephemeral quality" is worth something when it comes to tech.

Many of the arguments are spurious. The comparison between a sample PC and Mac set-up over five years used to develop the idea of the Apple tax is absurd. It shows a family choosing to buy a vastly over-powered Mac Pro with wide range of unnecessary add-ons like MobileMe - which are conspicuously missing from the XP (note, not Vista) set-up.

The most interesting bit of the report comes when the author accuses Apple of holding a price umbrella over the whole PC market and here comes the killer phrase: "even with arguably better products".

Even if a company produces superior products, it's still wrong if it charges more for them?

The most hilarious aspect of 'What Price Cool?' is the tone in which it is written. It sounds like a resentful teenager with feelings of inadequacy both tangible ('unaffordable' kit) and intangible ('cool').

Increasingly, Microsoft seems to be able to define itself only in relation to its competition rather than through any inherent qualities of its own products.

Like them or not, Apple's ads promote the benefits of the Mac. Microsoft's new ads don't promote the benefits of Windows or Office or any other Microsoft products. They focus on promoting the perceived failings of rival systems.

When this kind of nonsense airs you end up feeling embarrassed by it, not unlike watching a sloshed uncle dancing at a wedding disco.

Unusually, Apple has chosen to respond to the Laptop Hunter ads.

Apple's spokesman Bill Evans said of the ads:"A PC is no bargain when it doesn't do what you want."

He added: "The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool."

And let's not forget "arguably better", at least according to Microsoft's research.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Apple kit starts at a higher price than low-end PC models. Last year Apple CEO Steve Jobs admitted the company couldn't make a $500 PC that wasn't a piece of junk - and that doing so wasn't in the company's DNA.

Microsoft does some things quite well (Xbox) and the upcoming Windows 7 could be the most promising version of Windows for years. It's just a shame the company relies on its old fear, uncertainty and doubt rather than putting more faith in its own products.

In the meantime, it's only a matter of time before one of the actors starring in the 'just not cool enough to get a Mac' ads gets photographed using an Apple product in a public place. I give it a month.