FORTY minutes of Apple vs. Microsoft advertising?

I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC. Just hearing (or reading in this case) those words immediately puts people into this famous and funny commercial. Even though it's a generalization of PCs and Macs throughout, it got laughs from a lot of people. The setting is always the same: Apple-style minimalistic white background, formal looking representation of PC, casual looking representation of Mac. Mac is awesome, PC is formal, boring and too obsessed with work.

A formula for a commercial is good when it can be used a lot in different ways, while still remaining interesting. I acknowledge this particular formula is good, although I'm not checking if it remains interesting after 113 videos. Yes. Apple made over a hundred videos featuring the same two characters, albeit portrayed by different people. In America, they were obviously played by John Hodgman and Justin Long. The British ads feature David Mitchell and Robert Webb. In Japan they also opted for a comedy duo, known as: The Rahmens.

Like I said, they made 113 commercials. Just the American ones are over forty minutes in total. If you're absolutely bored and want to spend even more time procrastinating, you can check all 66 American ones out here. Researching all of this, I wondered how different the Japanese ads were from the American and British ones. Let's take a look at a, luckily subtitled, version of the first Get a Mac ad that was released, back in 2006.

The PC is immediately labeled in the exact same way. A 'boring' computer for work. Mac puts PC in the corner like it's his little idiot brother. This Japanese commercial is the only one to acknowledge the fact that both Mac and Pc are in fact PCs. Since the term PC is nothing more than 'Personal Computer'.

In the end, every commercial boils down to the same conclusion. Macs are awesome and better at everything, PCs are boring, dusty, clumsy, devious and just for work. I'll leave you with the promised forty minutes of ads, all in one video.

Typed from my Windows computer.