Apple’s Not Fond of Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” Ad Campaign

I admit… whenever I post Apple news, I feel like an anti-Apple zealot even though I’m not. It might be the rapid fans of Apple that make me feel that way, or not, but either way, a story posted at CNET last week is just far too humorous to not talk about, and yes, it puts once again puts Apple in a poor light.

Everyone’s familiar with the “I’m a PC” and “Laptop Hunters” ads from Microsoft, which aim to change consumer perception of PCs. No surprise, these were been created to serve the purpose of undoing the harm caused by Apple’s own long-running ad campaign that tried to put PCs in a bad light (many of which were highly exaggerated). So it’s somewhat of a surprise to know that when Microsoft fights back, Apple complains, and that’s exactly what happened here.

During Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference held in New Orleans last week, the company’s COO, Kevin Turner, recounted an experience, one where Apple’s legal department gave him a phone call. What could it have been about? Oh, how about Apple demanding Microsoft to stop running the ads? Their reasoning? “… we lowered our prices”, about $100… not exactly a ground-breaking change. I’m not sure if Apple meant this as a joke or not, but wow, what a demand!

I have no doubt that if the roles were reversed, Microsoft would have no problem calling Apple demanding the same thing, but the fact that it happened at all is just too funny.

And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business.