
Hi, I'm a Mac… Beep, beep - sant0sk1
http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2008/09/06/hi_im_a_mac_beep_beep/
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boredguy8
I've never heard someone complain the ads don't work. Their factual accuracy,
on the other hand, is far more dubious. But they're good ads.

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henning
I've always wondered how you tell if an ad has actually "worked" -- Apple's
increased revenue could be due to a million different things.

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boredguy8
There are many studies on just this thing. Primarily examine mass
communications journals if you're interested in scholarly research. But the
two most common:

1) Focus groups. Take a group of people, have them fill out a questionnaire,
watch a group of ads, then answer the questionnaire. These have become more
effective over time as the result of methodological research on research bias.
In the "early days" people were given a set of questions, watched THE AD, and
then answered the same set of questions. It turns out, though, that those
questions 'primed the pump' and skewed results when compared to a more neutral
setting where there are many questions about many products and then many ads.

2) Market research. Take two representative regions, deploy one advert in one
location and another at the other, compare and contrast. Again, this has
improved over time where it used to be "nothing vs. something", but that
really showed the effectiveness of advertising, not the result of a specific
campaign.

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jraines
Well, it was a nice excuse to analyze RoadRunner cartoons, but there's no data
refuting the claim that the ads don't work.

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fallentimes
Haha true. Reading those "Roadrunner laws" though was really interesting -
trying to think back to the cartoons and making sure they all applied.

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chaostheory
man, I guess these stupid Mac ads don't work

"Despite new products like the iPhone, variations of the iPod and the Apple TV
set-top box, this was a Macintosh quarter. Apple shipped 2.3 million Mac
computers in the quarter, 51 percent more than in the quarter a year ago.
Revenue on those computers increased 54 percent."

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/technology/24apple.html>

old article but then again this ad campaign has been running a while

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jwilliams
You could easily apply the same logic to the current presidential campaigns.

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jmtulloss
I'm not sure I understand. I can't think of any ads I've seen that make you
sympathize with the incompetent opponent. Could you elaborate?

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jwilliams
It was more about not appearing to be the elite... You want to be the
underdog, not the intellectual or similar. Both sides want you to feel they're
like you and the other is aloof or out of touch.

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DanielBMarkham
I'm glad that somebody got something good out of all of those hours watching
the Road Runner.

I'm just not sure that Road Runner is the source of all goodness when it comes
to advertising. Sounds more like a simplistic meme than a principle you can
actually use.

I like the ads, but then again, I still like my PC. Perhaps they should switch
to more of an Elmer Fudd paradigm.

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netcan
The idea is a very limited universe. Telling the same story with the same
tools. Repetition without repetition. Repetition is one of the most effective
ways of changing how people feel about something.

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DanielBMarkham
Yep I got it.

Only it's not working for me. Perhaps the thing that is repeated and the style
of repetition is more important than simply repeating.

In other words, once you generalize the article enough to get some meaning
from it, you're left with the empty feeling that the obvious was stated and
the hard parts were left out.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. I should have explained myself
better but was trying to be as terse as possible.

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btw0
My adblock plus block the whole ad page.

