Too Sad: Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ Campaign Made With Macs

These guys just can’t get it together. AppleInsider’s, Prince McLean writes, “Metadata found on Microsoft’s creative copy used in its ‘I’m a PC’ ad reveals that the graphics were actually produced using Macs running Adobe Creative Suite 3. After the details were published on the Flickr photo sharing site, Microsoft scrambled to polish off the embarrassing details last night.”

Microsoft’s much touted, and often obtuse, $10million ad campaign with Jerry Seinfeld has been scraped, and has been replaced with a new ad approach, which features an actor dressed to look like John Hodgman, the Apple’s Get a Mac ad “PC” character. He is joined by a people who all say, “I’m a PC,” in the attempt to send the message that PC users are everywhere. Decent concept — certainly nothing brilliant — except that its credibility was totally blown.

The problem is that even Microsoft needs a Mac in order to produce their commercial. Flickr user LuisDS discovered metadata which proved that Microsoft was using Macs as well as Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 (rather than its own Expressions Studio) in order to create the commercial.

Ouch.

Dilger, at Roughly Drafted, writes, “Apparently, neither Windows PCs nor Expression Studio are up to the task of taking on Apple and destroying its globe enshrouding “Get a Mac” campaign. The image of John Hodgman as a troubled PC struggling with Vista-related problems has pushed Microsoft to defend itself with a $300 million campaign to take control of the “conversation about Windows,” using Macs as needed to get the message produced.” LuisDS published the metadata details (which can be viewed at Cult of Mac); but, when he went back the following day, he discovered that Microsoft had scrubbed the revealing details from the work. Good work, LuisDS, for getting the word out before it disappeared. Apple marketing will get mileage out of this, we can be sure. Not only can’t Microsoft make an operating system which stands up to Apple’s OS X, but they can’t even make a commercial to repair their image using their own equipment without the support of Apple’s higher quality! Sad, sad, sad.