Apple Switch ad campaign
Encyclopedia
Switch was an advertising campaign
launched by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) on June 10, 2002. It featured what the company referred to as "real people" who had "switched" from the Microsoft Windows
platform to the Mac. An international television
and print ad campaign directed users to a website where various myths about the Mac platform were dispelled. The television commercials were directed by Errol Morris
.
, gained immense notoriety overnight in a kind of Internet phenomenon. (Feiss was a friend of Morris's son Hamilton Morris, who also appeared in a commercial. http://www.macobserver.com/article/2002/11/22.10.shtml)
Localized versions of the commercials, with local "switchers", aired in Iceland
and Japan
.
Certain ads featured celebrities, such as Tony Hawk
, DJ Q-Bert
, Yo-Yo Ma
, Kelly Slater
, Will Ferrell
, and the members of De La Soul
.
The American Switchers featured are:
The Japanese Switchers featured are:
American Switchers (not officially released):
campaign in 2006.
Due to the simplicity of the ad, many parodies
surfaced on the net shortly after the campaign started. Most of the parodies lamented features they had lost due to the switch, such as the ability to play popular games and use of the right mouse button. In what seemed like a parody, but was not, Microsoft's marketing team created a Web page titled "Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert", but Microsoft removed the Web page because it was misleading, even to the point of having a stock photograph used. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-961994.html
The background music of the Switch Ads is "Spit" by John Murphy
. The music was produced for TBWA Chiat Day by Kendall Marsh of Mental Music Productions, Sherman Oaks, CA.
Advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...
launched by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) on June 10, 2002. It featured what the company referred to as "real people" who had "switched" from the Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
platform to the Mac. An international television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and print ad campaign directed users to a website where various myths about the Mac platform were dispelled. The television commercials were directed by Errol Morris
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...
.
Switchers
One of the people who appeared in the commercials, Ellen FeissEllen Feiss
Ellen Feiss is an American who became an Internet phenomenon after her 2002 Errol Morris-directed television commercial for Apple Computer's Switch campaign grew into a cult hit...
, gained immense notoriety overnight in a kind of Internet phenomenon. (Feiss was a friend of Morris's son Hamilton Morris, who also appeared in a commercial. http://www.macobserver.com/article/2002/11/22.10.shtml)
Localized versions of the commercials, with local "switchers", aired in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Certain ads featured celebrities, such as Tony Hawk
Tony Hawk
Anthony Frank "Tony" Hawk , nicknamed "The Birdman" is an American retired professional skateboarder and actor. Hawk gained significant fame for completing the first 900 as well as his licensed video game titles distributed by Activision...
, DJ Q-Bert
DJ Q-bert
Richard Quitevis, born October 7, 1969, in San Francisco, California, known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert , is a Filipino-American Turntablist and composer.- Early life :...
, Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
, Kelly Slater
Kelly Slater
Robert Kelly Slater is an American professional surfer known for his competitive prowess and style. He has been crowned ASP World Champion a record 11 times, including 5 consecutive titles from 1994–98. He is the youngest and the oldest to win the title...
, Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
John William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
, and the members of De La Soul
De La Soul
De La Soul is an American hip hop trio formed in 1987 on Long Island, New York. The band is best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip hop subgenres...
.
The American Switchers featured are:
- Aaron Adams
- Alex Schoknecht
- Andy Skowronski
- Bill Swan
- Damon Wright
- Dave Haxton
- David Carey
- De La SoulDe La SoulDe La Soul is an American hip hop trio formed in 1987 on Long Island, New York. The band is best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip hop subgenres...
- Dianne Druyff
- DJ Q-bertDJ Q-bertRichard Quitevis, born October 7, 1969, in San Francisco, California, known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert , is a Filipino-American Turntablist and composer.- Early life :...
- Ellen FeissEllen FeissEllen Feiss is an American who became an Internet phenomenon after her 2002 Errol Morris-directed television commercial for Apple Computer's Switch campaign grew into a cult hit...
- Fabiola Torres
- Gautam Godse
- Gustavo SorolaGustavo SorolaGustavo "Gus" Sorola is a computer technichan for Rooster Teeth Productions, and is also a voice actor in their machinima series, including Red vs. Blue as Private Dick Simmons and in The Strangerhood as the Computer, a role he shared with Geoff Ramsey...
- Gianni Jacklone
- Hamilton Morris
- Janie PorcheBound StemsBound Stems was an indie rock band with math rock influences from Chicago, Illinois. The band's members were Bobby Gallivan , Dan Fleury , Dan Radzicki , Evan Sult , and Janie Porche ....
- Jentry Poss
- Jeremiah Cohick
- Juan Proaño http://youtube.com/watch?v=lS2p31okRi8
- Kelly SlaterKelly SlaterRobert Kelly Slater is an American professional surfer known for his competitive prowess and style. He has been crowned ASP World Champion a record 11 times, including 5 consecutive titles from 1994–98. He is the youngest and the oldest to win the title...
- Liza RichardsonLiza RichardsonLiza Richardson is a music supervisor on numerous films and TV shows, and a DJ on her weekly Saturday evening radio show on KCRW, an eclectic music and NPR news radio station based in Santa Monica, California...
- Mark FrauenfelderMark FrauenfelderMark Frauenfelder is a blogger, illustrator, and journalist. He is editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and co-editor of the collaborative weblog Boing Boing. Along with his wife, Carla Sinclair, he founded the bOING bOING print zine in 1988, where he acted as editor until the print version folded in...
- Mark Gibson
- Patrick Gant
- Richard Ziskin
- Sarah Whistler
- Tess Bethune
- Theresa McPherson
- Tony HawkTony HawkAnthony Frank "Tony" Hawk , nicknamed "The Birdman" is an American retired professional skateboarder and actor. Hawk gained significant fame for completing the first 900 as well as his licensed video game titles distributed by Activision...
- Will FerrellWill FerrellJohn William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
- Yo-Yo MaYo-Yo MaYo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
The Japanese Switchers featured are:
- Hiroatsu Takekura
- Keiko Tamura
- Keisuke Hanafusa
- Kiminori Hirose
- Momoko Kikuchi
- Nobuyuki Shiba
- Satoru Yokouchi
- Seiji Hongo
- Erikaa Kiyama
American Switchers (not officially released):
- Andrea Keller
- Aaron Oswald
- Bill West
- Chris Kasick
- Christopher GuestChristopher GuestChristopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest , better known as Christopher Guest, is an American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films that...
- Dan Goodis
- Daniel ClowesDaniel ClowesDaniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....
- Drew Betz
- Douglas RushkoffDouglas RushkoffDouglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture, and his advocacy of open source solutions to social problems.Rushkoff is most frequently regarded as a media...
- Laura Lindgren
- Jeremy Schwed
- Marleny Gotrim
- Mary Ellen Taylor
- Mo Liebowitz
- Perry FarrellPerry FarrellPerry Farrell is the frontman for the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction. Farrell created the touring festival Lollapalooza as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction in 1991; it has since evolved into an annual destination festival. Farrell continues to produce Lollapalooza with partners William...
- Rick Rosner
- Simone Austin
- Wanda SykesWanda SykesWanda Sykes is an American writer, stand-up comedian, actress, and voice artist. She earned the 1999 Emmy Award for her writing on The Chris Rock Show. In 2004 Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America...
Campaign
The Switch campaign, while distinctive, was not very effective, and was gradually phased out in 2003. The advertising concept of the Mac's advantages over the PC was later revived for the Get a MacGet a Mac
The Get a Mac campaign is a television advertising campaign created for Apple Inc. by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the company's advertising agency, that ran from 2006 to 2009...
campaign in 2006.
Due to the simplicity of the ad, many parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
surfaced on the net shortly after the campaign started. Most of the parodies lamented features they had lost due to the switch, such as the ability to play popular games and use of the right mouse button. In what seemed like a parody, but was not, Microsoft's marketing team created a Web page titled "Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert", but Microsoft removed the Web page because it was misleading, even to the point of having a stock photograph used. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-961994.html
The background music of the Switch Ads is "Spit" by John Murphy
John Murphy (musician)
John Murphy , sometimes credited as "Jonh Murphy", is an Australian drummer, percussionist and multi-instrumental session musician who has played in numerous Australian and British post-punk, ambient and industrial music groups...
. The music was produced for TBWA Chiat Day by Kendall Marsh of Mental Music Productions, Sherman Oaks, CA.
External links
- Mirror 1 of Apple Switch advertisements
- Spoofs of Apple Switch advertisements
- Hunter Cressall's Mac Switch spoof
- Spoof switch ads by the Phone Losers of AmericaPhone Losers of AmericaThe Phone Losers of America is an American phreaking group founded in the 1990s, active on the hacking scene. The PLA e-zine was first written in 1990, and the went up in 1994. It has ranked at the top of Alexa's "Prank Call" category.- History :...
- Press release from the launch
- Errol Morris had some of the unreleased spots on his site via the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Apple's Switch ads page via WayBack MachineWayback machineThe WABAC Machine refers to a fictional machine from the cartoon segment Peabody's Improbable History, an ongoing feature of the 1960's cartoon series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The WABAC Machine is a plot device used to transport the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman back in time...