Iconic Ads: “Get a Mac”
‘Get a Mac’ is a golden egg: a single-idea campaign with hundreds of possible instantiations, which ran globally for three years, becoming a cultural touchstone and having a tangible impact on sales and revenue. (Sam Anderson, The Drum Network, June 14, 2022)
When Steve Jobs asked BBDO to come up with a campaign to sell the new Intel-based Mac computers, the product wasn’t in trouble but it wasn’t growing.
While Apple’s “1984” TV spot created a sensation, it only aired a couple of times and the MacIntosh never sold more than 4.53 million units annually through 2005. By 2005, the recent stunning success of the iPod (2001) and iTunes (2003) had awakened the company to the power of marketing their products more aggressively. BBDO produced some wonderful ads for iPod that made the product irresistible to teens and young adults. iTunes, on the other hand, was the first service offered by Apple. Today, Apple’s services, including Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness, Apple News, Apple Podcasts, and Apple books, account for 21% of Apple’s sales. The most successful Apple product, iPhone, accounts for 51% of sales and was originally described by Steve Jobs as “a computer, a phone, and an iPod.”
Responding to Jobs’ brief, BBDO developed the “Get a Mac” campaign and it ran from 2006 – 2010. The Mac unit sales increased an average of 29% per year through 2010 and Apple was ranked fourth globally in terms of pc units sold. In addition to generating business results, the “Get a Mac” campaign is also credited with firmly establishing the company’s distinctive competitive position in consumers’ minds and increasing the number of consumers who exhibit unparalleled loyalty to Apple’s premium priced products.
Lee Clow, the creative director who developed the “1984” campaign and went on to assume global creative leadership of BBDO, said that Apple is positioned as a “creative partner” for consumers. Mac computers, iPod, iPhone, and the other Apple products make technology accessible and useful to creative people (or those who want to be creative).
Apple wins over a generation with ‘Get a Mac.’
Sam Anderson, The Drum Network, June 14, 2022
The campaign answered a brief from Jobs himself. It solidified for a generation Apple’s long-term positioning ambition: a dichotomy between Mac and Windows PCs, with the former cast as more fashionable, youthful, reliable, safer and smarter. Across more than 60 North American TV spots – they reportedly shot over 300 – the differences between the two are personified by legendary humorist John Hodgman (dour, boring PC) and actor Justin Long (young, airy Mac). Sam Anderson, The Drum Network, June 14, 2022
Apple's 'Get a Mac.' The Long, Strange Trip to a Comedy Classic
Tim Nudd, The Muse by Clio, March 14, 2022
They were the most lovable attack ads in history: Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign, which ran from 2006 to 2009, starring Justin Long as a personified Macintosh computer and John Hodgman as a PC. But the journey of getting there is an epic story all its own. This week on our Tagline podcast, we revisit the entire history of "Get a Mac" with those who worked on it—from the brutal eight-month search for the idea through its demise four years later, when it was named Campaign of the Decade by Adweek.