[nav3]

It seems to me that Apple brand recognition is at an all time high, thanks to the success of the iPod. The thing that gets me is that lately Apple seems to only advertise their music players.

I have a friend who loves her iPod and has been looking around for a new computer. She wound up getting a Dell before I could show her the new Mac Mini. She now absolutely loves the Mini, and wishes she had seen it sooner. I'm sure there are many other similar cases.

Now that Apple has a cheap windows alternative, and a hip brand image among younger demographics, why arent they pushing harder on advertising?

[FulcrumPilot]

It's their way of saying that they failed miserably in getting more people to make the switch, and have given up hope to gain market share on home computers?!

[andreas_g4]

Because Apple is relying on folks like us that spread the word all over the world?

[willed]

Apple have always been lame at advertising. Their adverts are always esoteric, hardly ever including useful information such as price, where to buy one and why to buy one (other than because it looks cool), and their adverts are never widely visible. While other computer companies over here blanket advertise, Apple generally pays for one slot in prime time and thinks 'well that should cover it', but generally it just leaves people thinking 'spinning iMacs - wtf?' or suchlike and then forgetting about it for another year until they see the next esoteric Apple ad.

It's almost as if they don't want to sell computers!

[ghporter]

Originally posted by willed:
Apple have always been lame at advertising. Their adverts are always esoteric, hardly ever including useful information such as price, where to buy one and why to buy one (other than because it looks cool), and their adverts are never widely visible. While other computer companies over here blanket advertise, Apple generally pays for one slot in prime time and thinks 'well that should cover it', but generally it just leaves people thinking 'spinning iMacs - wtf?' or suchlike and then forgetting about it for another year until they see the next esoteric Apple ad.

It's almost as if they don't want to sell computers!

I think you're spot on here. The Apple ads I've seen have either been way over the top "you'll be cool with an iPod" type spots, or extremely spare and esoteric (good choice of words, willed!). They've had some real success in breaking ground, such as the "Big Brother" campaign waaaayyyy back in 1984, but they didn't follow up on it, and if you didn't see that year's Super Bowl, you probably didn't see the whole campaign.

They are very good at product placement, though. I wonder how many PowerBooks were sold because Jeff Goldblum's character in "Independence Day" used one.

The impression (at least up until the Mac Mini hit the streets) was that Macs were for eggheads, "creative types" and other non-conformists, all of whom had to have lots of cash. Now I doubt many of us would like to be labeled as an egghead, but non-conformist is a nice label. It's the high price tags on Apple products that have tended to keep them out of the mass market-a strategic blunder on their part as far as I'm concerned.