Apple "Get a Mac" Campaign Case Study
Sixty-six commercials, two actors, a white void, and the most effective identity-based comparative advertising campaign in technology history.
“Hello, I’m a Mac.” “And I’m a PC.” That’s it. Two people standing in a white void for 30 seconds, bickering politely. Between 2006 and 2009, those 66 commercials drove one of the most significant market share expansions in the history of personal computing and set a template for identity-based brand positioning that marketers still study today.
The Context
By 2006, Apple had a genuine technological story to tell. The company had just completed its transition from PowerPC chips to Intel processors, which meant Macs were no longer architecturally incompatible with the PC ecosystem. Apple had also released Boot Camp, software that let Macs run Windows natively, removing the single biggest objection from Windows users considering a switch.
The problem was perception. Mac’s market share in the US hovered around 2-3%. Macs were widely seen as expensive machines for graphic designers and musicians: premium products for niche creative professionals, not realistic options for mainstream computer buyers. Getting Windows users into the consideration set required something more than a product announcement.
TBWA\Media Arts Lab, Apple’s long-term agency, had a clean brief: get mainstream PC users to think seriously about switching. The challenge was doing this without alienating them.
The Campaign
The format was stripped to its essentials. Justin Long, then known mainly from the film Jeepers Creepers and a few smaller roles, played “Mac”: relaxed in jeans and a t-shirt, effortlessly at ease. John Hodgman, a writer and comedian with no significant acting profile at the time, played “PC”: earnest, friendly, perennially beset by problems, in a rumpled suit. No set dressing except a white background. No voiceover. Just conversation.
Each of the 66 spots picked one difference between Macs and PCs (viruses, system crashes, compatibility issues, photo management, music, video editing, starting up, shutting down) and expressed it through the characters’ contrasting experiences. The Mac would mention something that worked effortlessly; the PC would explain why the same thing was complicated, required a restart, triggered a security warning, or simply didn’t work.
Director Phil Morrison brought a restraint to the spots that was essential to their success. The tone was never contemptuous. PC was never a villain. He was more like a well-meaning colleague who kept getting unlucky, someone you felt slightly sorry for rather than someone you resented.
The campaign launched April 2006 with a set of initial spots and ran continuously through 2009. It was adapted for the UK market with David Mitchell as PC and Robert Webb as Mac, a pairing that arguably worked even better than the US version because Mitchell’s put-upon exasperation and Webb’s breezy confidence mapped so naturally onto the character dynamic. Japan got its own version as well.
Why It Worked
Comparative advertising is inherently risky. When you run a campaign built around your competitor, you guarantee that your competitor stays in the conversation. Years of “Mac vs. PC” spots meant that IBM-compatible Windows PCs had an advertising presence in Apple’s own media budget. That’s a trade-off most brands wouldn’t make.
Apple made it work because the comparison was never about specifications. The campaign didn’t claim that Macs were faster, had more RAM, had better battery life, or were more compatible with enterprise software. It couldn’t, because in several of those categories, the comparison would have gone the other way. Instead, the campaign compared types of people.
Mac was the kind of person who had his life together: relaxed, creative, unfussy about technology because the technology just worked. PC was the kind of person who meant well but was constantly sabotaged by forces beyond his control: security alerts, driver conflicts, the need to restart to install an update. The question the campaign posed to viewers wasn’t “which computer is technically superior?” It was “which of these guys are you?”
That reframe made the campaign extraordinarily difficult to rebut. Microsoft’s eventual response, the “I’m a PC” campaign in 2008 featuring a diverse range of PC users claiming the label with pride, acknowledged the frame rather than escaping it. You can’t run a “PC Pride” campaign without conceding that the Mac-defined identity problem exists.
The casting was as important as the writing. Justin Long was not aspirational in a threatening way. He wasn’t glamorous or untouchably cool. He was approachable, someone a regular person could imagine being, not just admiring. John Hodgman was genuinely likeable. The decision to make PC sympathetic rather than contemptible was crucial; it made the campaign persuasive to PC users rather than alienating them at the outset.
The Results
During the Get a Mac campaign’s three-year run, Apple’s US Mac market share grew from roughly 2-3% to approximately 7-8%, a significant shift in a market where incumbent users rarely switch platforms. Mac sales grew year-over-year throughout the campaign period. The US results were strong enough that Apple adapted the format for two additional markets, suggesting the formula had cross-cultural validity beyond the specific casting.
The campaign won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2007. Lee Clow, Chiat/Day’s creative director who had also led the 1984 campaign, cited it as one of his proudest works. In 2011, Advertising Age ranked it among the top 15 advertising campaigns of the first decade of the 21st century.
Justin Long’s career benefited significantly from the association; he became, for a generation of consumers, literally synonymous with a particular identity. John Hodgman’s profile grew as well; he went on to a regular Daily Show correspondent role partly on the strength of his “PC” recognition.
The Lesson for Today’s Marketers
The Get a Mac campaign is the definitive evidence that comparative advertising can work brilliantly, but only under specific conditions that most brands don’t meet.
The conditions are: the comparison must be about identity rather than capability, the competitor’s character must be sympathetic enough that you’re inviting consideration rather than contempt, and you must have the creative output capacity to sustain the campaign long enough for the identity association to compound.
Most comparative advertising fails because it argues specs. “Our processor is faster. Our battery lasts longer. Our screen has more pixels.” Consumers discount spec claims from interested parties; they’re trained to do so. But “which of these two people are you?” is a question consumers answer emotionally, not skeptically.
The harder lesson is about casting — not just of actors but of the brand itself. Apple could position Mac as the relaxed creative because that characterization was credible. A brand without a genuine identity can’t build one through character comparison. The campaign worked because it described something real about Mac users. If it had described something aspirational rather than actual, the performance would have felt false.
Key Results
- Mac Market Share Growth: US Mac market share grew from roughly 2–3% to approximately 7–8% during the campaign's three-year run (2006–2009)
- Campaign Longevity: 66 individual spots produced over three years — an unusually sustained campaign investment for a technology brand
- Industry Award: Won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2007
- International Adaptation: Adapted for UK (David Mitchell and Robert Webb) and Japan with local actors, demonstrating the format's cross-cultural durability
SWOT Analysis
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Key Takeaway
Comparative advertising only works at scale when the comparison is about who the customer wants to be, not what the product can do — Apple never argued specs, they painted a picture and let consumers choose which character they identified with.
