BusinessWeek Online “Byte of the Mac” columnist Charles Haddad compares Apple’s new “Switch” ad campaign to an “old-time bible-thumping revival” in his recent column, entitled Converting the PC Sinners.
“These aren’t your usual cast of Mac converts: spiky-haired artists and tweedy professors. No, this list includes a young Windows network administrator who confesses: ‘I deal with Windows all day. When I tire of that, I come home to a Macintosh.’ Talk about thumbing your nose at the devil,” said Haddad.
Haddad said that Apple isn’t taking this Switch campaign lightly. Indeed, the company is trying to retake ground it lost in the mid ’90s when its market share slipped to its current 3 percent, by his estimation.
Noting market research firm IDC’s recent news that Apple’s market share grew from 3.4 to 3.7 percent year over year for the first quarter, Haddad said, “That was no accident: In the past year, Apple has been targeting PC users like never before. The campaign began with the rollout of Apple’s own retail stores, placed in the path of wealthy young shoppers in big cities.”
Indeed, conversion of Windows users is vital to Apple’s continued fiscal health, said Haddad, since “there just aren’t that many remaining newbies.” Calling the new Switch ads “the carrot to lure PC users into the stores,” Haddad explained that once Windows users get there, the real selling begins as Apple tries to entice them with iBooks, digital cameras, iPods and more.
“Apple makes this offer to keep them there: It will transfer all of any convert’s PC files to a Mac without charge — an offer that could tempt even the most hardened PC sinner,” he concluded.