Switchers was an

advertising campaign An advertising campaign or marketing campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ide ...

launched by

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

on June 10, 2002. It featured what the company referred to as "real people" who had "switched" from the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

platform to the

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

. An international

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

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 Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects, and the invention of the Interrotron. In 2003, his '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Li ...

Switchers

A young woman who appeared in the commercials, Ellen Feiss, became an

internet celebrity An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...

. Feiss was a friend of Morris's son Hamilton Morris, who also appeared in a commercial. Localized versions of the commercials, with local "switchers", aired in

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Certain ads featured

celebrities Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group due to the attention given to them by mass media. The word is also used to refer to famous individuals. A person may attain celebrity status by having great w ...

, such as

Tony Hawk Anthony Frank Hawk (born May 12, 1968), nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first docume ...

DJ Q-Bert Richard Quitevis (born October 7, 1969) known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert, is a Filipino American turntablism, turntablist and composer who has heavily influenced the History of DJing. He was awarded America's Best DJ in 2010, was DMC W ...

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is a French-born American Cello, cellist. Born to Chinese people, Chinese parents in Paris, he was regarded as a child prodigy there and began to study the cello with his father at age four. At the age of seven, ...

Kelly Slater Robert Kelly Slater (born February 11, 1972) is an American professional surfer who has been crowned World Surf League champion a record 11 times. He is widely regarded as the greatest professional surfer of all time, and holds 56 Championship T ...

Will Ferrell John William Ferrell (; born July 16, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is known for his leading man roles in comedy films and for his work as a television producer. Ferrell received various accolades, including ...

and members of

De La Soul De La Soul ( ) is an American hip hop music, hip hop group formed in the village of Amityville on Long Island, New York (state), New York in 1988. They are best known for their eclectic sampling, eccentric lyrics, and contributions to the evoluti ...

Campaign

The Switch campaign, while distinctive, was not very effective, and was gradually phased out in 2003. This can be somewhat blamed, however, for the Macintosh lineup as the

iMac G3 The iMac G3, originally released as the iMac, is a series of Macintosh personal computers that Apple Computer sold from 1998 to 2003. The iMac was Apple's first major product release under CEO Steve Jobs following his return to the financiall ...

was becoming obsolete while the new

iMac G4 The iMac G4 is an all-in-one personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from January 2002 to August 2004. The computer is comprised of a hemispheric base that holds the components, including a PowerPC G4 processor, ...

that was showcased was considerably more expensive than comparable

Wintel Wintel (portmanteau of ''Windows'' and ''Intel'') is the partnership of Microsoft and Intel producing personal computers (PCs) using Intel x86-compatible processors running Windows. Background By the early 1980s, the chaos and incompatibility ...

offerings. The advertising concept of the Mac's advantages over the PC was dropped in favor for the

Get a Mac The "Get a Mac" campaign was a television advertising campaign created for Apple Inc. (Apple Computer, Inc. at the start of the campaign) by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the company's advertising agency, that ran from 2006 to 2009. The advertising cam ...

campaign in 2006. Due to the simplicity of the ad, many

parodies A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satirical or ironic imitation. Often its subject is an original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, etc), but a parody can als ...

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

computer games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

and use of the

right mouse button Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theor ...

. 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 it for being fraudulent and misleading, even to the point of having a stock photograph used. 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.

References

{{reflist

External links

Mirror of Apple Switch advertisementsHunter Cressall's Mac Switch spoofSpoof switch ads
by the

Phone Losers of America The Phone Losers of America (PLA) is an internet prank call community founded in 1994 as a phone phreaking and hacking e-zine. Today the PLA hosts a prank call podcast called the ''Snow Plow Show'', which it has hosted since 2012. History Th ...

Press release from the launch
via the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Apple's Switch ads page
via

WayBack Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

Apple Inc. advertising American television commercials 2000s television commercials Advertising campaigns

Switchers

Campaign

See also

References

External links