Siracusa on the ‘Get a Mac’ Ad Campaign

John Siracusa likes the new ads, except for the “Viruses” one:

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Mac OS X will soon suffer a plague of viruses and malware. I don’t think it will, at least not to the degree that Windows has suffered. But that’s not important. The threshold for backlash is much lower. A single, legitimate Mac virus spreading in the wild is all it’ll take to start the snowball rolling downhill. The media is already hungry for stories about Mac malware. Apple’s new ad makes this into an even bigger story. “Apple Touts Immunity, Then Gets Infected.” One virus makes that headline. The reality of the overall malware situation on Macs and PCs is irrelevant.

I disagree here. If and when Mac OS X gets hit by an actual destructive virus, there’s going to be an overwhelmingly disproportionate reaction in the mainstream media no matter what. So why hold back? It really is a legitimate selling point, and the media reaction isn’t going to be that much different now that Apple is actually advertising based on this.

★ Tuesday, 2 May 2006