"I'm a PC" (also known as Pride) is a television

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 ...

created for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

by ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CPB). The series first began to appear in September, 2008. The new series of commercials replace those that featured the pairing of

Jerry Seinfeld Jerome Allen Seinfeld ( ; born April 29, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. As a stand-up comedian, Seinfeld specializes in observational comedy. Seinfeld gained stardom playing a semi-fictionalized version ...

and

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

. The $300 million advertising campaign was designed to challenge Apple's Get a Mac campaign, in which a

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 ...

PC is personified as an uninteresting office employee overly concerned with work, by showing everyday people to be PC users, thus breaking the perceived stereotype depicted in the Get a Mac commercials.

Campaign

The ad series features prominent and popular individuals saying "I'm a PC" and has appearances by common international users as well as personalities such as writer

Deepak Chopra Deepak Chopra (; ; born October 22, 1946) is an Indian-American author, New Age, new age guru, and alternative medicine advocate. A prominent figure in the New Age movement, his books and videos have made him one of the best-known and wealthi ...

, mixed martial artist

Rashad Evans Rashad Evans (born September 25, 1979) is an American retired mixed martial arts, mixed martial artist who competed in the Light Heavyweight (MMA), Light Heavyweight division. Evans started his professional MMA career in 2003, and was the Heavyw ...

, actress Eva Longoria, photographer Geoff Green and singer

Pharrell Williams Pharrell Lanscilo Williams (; born April 5, 1973), also known mononymously as Pharrell, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer, and fashion designer. He first became known as one half of the music production duo ...

. The campaign was created by the CPB advertising agency and exhibited normal PC users to be found everywhere. It was the second phase of Microsoft's 2008 efforts to displace the ubiquity of Apple's "Get a Mac" ads, which portrayed the Mac as "cool and intuitive" and the PC as "boring and clunky". The Microsoft spots typically opened with an image of Sean Siler, an actual Microsoft employee dressed as John Hodgman's personification of a PC stating lines such as "I'm a PC, and I've been made into a stereotype" and "I'm a PC, and I am not alone." The composition was initially made to resemble that of the Apple campaign, as Siler resembles Hodgman, the "PC" counterpart to Justin Long as a Mac in the Apple commercials. The advertisements are also interspersed with various non-famous users who proclaim "I'm a PC" from a variety of places and in a number of methods. The intent is to demonstrate how PC users are ordinary people.

Windows 7

Touting the then-upcoming

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

as Microsoft's best ever operating system,

Steve Ballmer Steven Anthony Ballmer (; March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He i ...

said during his CES 2009 presentation "That's why we say, 'I'm a PC and proud of it'!". Upon the release of

, Microsoft aired several advertisements under this campaign demonstrating the features of their new operating system. The ads typically focus on one person and end with the tagline "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea."

References

{{Microsoft Microsoft advertising campaigns American television commercials 2000s television commercials American advertising slogans 2008 quotations Computer-related introductions in 2008