Where’s the Mac Media Blitz?

There’s a smallish film making the rounds currently called Revenge of the Sith. It is a decent movie though calling the acting wooden would be doing trees everywhere a disservice, after all trees grow. Acting aside the movie was fairly compelling, many of the disparate story threads were addressed and (spoiler alert!) it turns out Anakin is Darth Vader. Who knew? The really interesting thing about Revenge of the Sith is not so much the movie as the marketing hype surrounding the thing. Any show you watch from SpongeBob to Law and Order probably has featured at least one commercial for Revenge of the Sith. Televised advertisements are bolstered by cross promotion with everything from fast food to cell carriers. Faced with yet another grease befouled meal accompanied by a plastic action figure one is sorely tempted to wonder if all this advertising is really necessary. Revenge of the Sith is, after all, the latest installment in one of the most fantastically successful movie franchises of all time. It is quite likely that a quiet word of mouth campaign would have let interested parties know that the long awaited movie was actually in the theaters. Of course the folks with a financial interest in the movie are interested in selling the greatest number of tickets, not with making your TV less annoying during commercial breaks and opted for the massive media blitz.

The Macintosh has a lot in common with the Star Wars franchise. Both feature a fantastically loyal fan base, both feature incredible name recognition and both garner massive media coverage.  For the marketers of the Mac this seems to be enough, they are happy to let the positive media, web sites and satisfied customers extol their Mac experience in hopes of moving product. Apple should reconsider this strategy and take a lesson from LucasArts: If you can get people talking that’s great but it is even better when you bash them over the head time and time again until the message grabs hold like an overly stimulated pit bull.

The natural question at this point is to ask “Why now?” The media push for Revenge of the Sith was obvious, it coincided with the release of the movie. The reasons for a Mac push are not quite as obvious but still compelling. Tiger has been reviewed countless times with the vast majority of people agreeing that Tiger is head and shoulders (or insert appropriate feline anatomy) above Windows XP (though, seemingly, every reviewer alludes to Longhorn at some point). The introduction of the Mini has removed many of the hurdles people faced when moving to the Mac platform in the past and Apple has a ton of people talking right now. In short, this is the ripest moment in recent memory for a Mac campaign of Schwarzkopfian proportions.

So why isn’t Apple pushing Tiger and the Mac like crazy? Television time is pricey, magazine ads are expensive, and Apple has a history of doing a whole bunch with very few ads (this is typified by the 1984 spot). At this point Apple needs to realize that a few very clever ads aren’t going to have the same impact in 2005 as they did two decades ago. The television market is simply more segmented than it was when the motorcycle ad aired and, additionally, people are less impressed by that form of heavily overdone advertising. It is easier to dismiss the cost issue, Apple is flush with cash and if Revenge of the Sith tells us anything it is that you’ll move more product with more ads even if you have the makings of a great word of mouth campaign.

Of course there may be legitimate reasons Apple is not smacking us over the head with just how great the Mac is. It may be that the advantages of an entire computer or operating system are considered too difficult to successfully convey in a limited amount of time. Yet Microsoft’s ads seem to be able to convey a coherent message in under a minute and marketing firms are full of creative and inventive folks. Somewhere there is an ad that conveys they greatness of Tiger and a complimentary spot that tells people to expect more from a Macintosh. So while one may personally find the perfect commercial difficult to devise be assured that some clever person can create the perfect pitch.

All the arguments for advertising are rendered moot is Apple isn’t advertising out of fear of increased sales. On the surface fear of increased sales seems like the most inane reason ever given not to advertise but if Apple lacks the capabilities to actually meet demand for products should sales increase markedly then it is wise to not to pump up sales until they can reasonably expect to meet demand. From the anecdotal evidence department a friend of mine recently ordered a Mac Mini with a few upgrades. The computer’s ship date was first pegged at five days and then delayed until the process took a full two weeks. Now this was merely a single order so it is not necessarily indicative of running at full manufacturing capacity but it was interesting when Apple gave “unanticipated demand” as the cause for the delay.

If Apple has the capacity to fulfill more orders (and given Apple’s history on meeting demand for popular products that is a very large “if”) then the lack of advertising is nearly unforgivable. Even if the campaign is an utter failure and features users flying into trees it is worth lightening the corporate coffers by a few dollars to give it a try. Most are convinced that Apple will stick to the historical advertising trends (an occasional spot here and there) but there are reasons to be hopeful that this strategy is changing inside of Apple. Consider for a moment the iPod campaign, iPod ads are continuous and are building a strong brand identity (much like Budweiser ads). Hopefully Apple will take a lesson from the iPod and Darth Lucas and begin pushing the Mac and Tiger in earnest.