Buy a Mac! -?
I had to relay this story from a recent airline trip. I was sitting on a Southwest flight during a Chicago stopover. The flight attendant and the guy in the seat next to me where chatting about the laptop he was using. The flight attendant commented that she was in the market for a new Laptop and liked his because it was so small. What a perfect set up for good word of mouth PR. So what did he say?
He looked right at her and said “buy a mac”. She kind of looked at him and said why and his answer was simply that it was too hard to find a new pc without Vista on it. And then the audience chimed in. The guy on the other side of the aisle said that he had a PC for work but was all Mac at home. The woman behind said she swears by her Mac, another commented on how much he hates Vista and I had to chime in with my wife’s comment on her Mac (versus my PC) – she always says ” it just works”.
So the Mac guys – actually, the Mac people were right there on the plane, and no amount of “I’m a PC” advertising was going to overcome the bad press that Microsoft has had with Vista (at least in that audience). The lessons from a former boss were ringing in my ears ” you never have to recover from a great start”.
Please don’t read me wrong (or slam me in mac vs PC comments) - my career is built on Windows (XP) – and with a great IT department behind me and all the remote access and complex software I run, it is a lifeline. But for the personal user – the home user, do you think the Mac ads are having an effect? You betcha!
Date: November 4, 2008