hello, I’m a human being

Perhaps this final act was meant

To clinch a lifetime’s argument

That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could

For all those born beneath an angry star

Least we forget how fragile we are

— Fragile, Sting

You don’t need to be working in communication to remember the “Get a Mac” campaign by TBWA/Media Arts Lab from 2006. Human Branding then reached competitive levels (in every sense) when Apple decided not only to personify their own brand, but also their main competitor: Microsoft. You might remember the format: white background, Justin Long (at the peek of his career) introducing himself “Hello, I’m a Mac” and John Hodgman (truly launched by this very campaign) responding “And I’m a PC”. The first one: young, cool, creative, attractive, jeans and a t-shirt; the second one: an older nerd with a suit a couple of sizes too big. The backdrop jingle will hardly be forgotten.

With its wittiness as classic as a Buster Keaton sketch and its ruthless irony, this commercial marks an epoch in which computers were becoming indispensable worldwide as much as phones and the market was monopolized by two names only: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. 

Today nobody would hesitate if asked to define the brand character of both brands. The two charismatic leaders have slowly consolidated the audience’s imagery overlapping their own image with the one of the brand. We imagine Apple with round glasses, determined look, black turtleneck and jeans. Same goes for Microsoft: clever, blue shirt and a cardigan, maybe less sexy but definitely shortlisted for a Nobel Prize (Inside Bill’s Brain represents only the last of the bricks that were laid to cement this representation). 

But at that time, in 2006, the battle of building two very definite and distinct characters was real.

Bill Gates was one of the richest men on Earth and therefore not easy to identify with (especially with a product that was meant to represent John Doe), while Jobs was this restless and stubborn character who was starting to be known (worldwide) also for his bespoken brutality towards both collaborators and family members (traits that were easily forgotten once he passed in 2011, turning the narrative into worship and sanctification — the Danny Boyle movie is in this sense extremely transparent). 

So, Apple opted for a minimalistic ABC-communication that could penetrate the world audience’s mind and set a fix imagery for the new brand character and tone of voice: apparently Jobs picked Justin Long himself. But Apple’s desire to humanize the brand’s character has distant roots. In 1996 the branded magazine MacAddict dedicated an entire page to this scheme:

As it appears very clearly, the competition was fierce. No wonder that many believe that this image from MacAddict set the rulebook for the making of “Get a Mac” some years later.

Anyhow, Microsoft could not allow leaving the challenge unanswered, so some months after the airing of the Justin Long campaign, a new commercial was launched (produced by Crispin Porter + Bogusky), called “I’m a PC”. Microsoft hence took the chance to claim its average-man positioning, by editing a series of interventions by average and less average characters (also featuring Bill Gates himself). The format is simple: to demolish Apple’s image of Microsoft, by making men and women from all over the world and with the most distinct occupations say that they are a PC and, for example, that “I design green buildings” or “I study the law”. So, very simple thoughts really; and that is exactly the point: show the average. Although there are two very notable moments in this advertising campaign: the overture and the closing. The video opens on the same white minimalistic background of Apple, introducing a look-alike to John Hodgman (still looking like a character from a Roy Andersson movie), saying: “Hello, I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype”, which is actually a very weak positioning per se, stepping into the role of the victim (but maybe victimhood is a very American thing to be appreciated for). The closing, on the other hand, provides us with a more interesting insight in the characterization process, showing Deepak Chopra in his studio stating: “I'm a PC and i'm a human being, not a human doing, not a human thinking, but a human being.” which is a cryptic message really. What is a “human doing” or a “human thinking” if not a human being itself? But the way he states it sounds very convincing: I am a product and a human being. We have rarely witnessed such a clear and stubborn attempt to associate an actual person to a product. It looks as if Microsoft decided to seize the opportunity offered in bad faith by Apple and went far beyond the message, humanizing its machine.

But did all of this actually work? (It all comes to this at some point, doesn’t it?) We’ll get to that soon. But first we need to observe how this communication guideline set by Apple developed over time. We can find traces of the humanization process a couple of years after the airing of “Get a Mac”, concurrently with the Antennagate that shook the launch of iPhone 4 in 2010. 

The answer that Steve Jobs gave at the emergency press conference is still to be considered a breakthrough in crisis management and corporate communication.

Jobs appeared in front of a slide bearing the following message: “We are not perfect. Phones are not perfect. We want to make all our users happy”. Focus on the choice of words: Jobs is candidly saying that his own company is not perfect and that their product isn’t perfect. Humility? Kind of. The choice to show himself and Apple as fragile entities cannot be abstracted from a communication that has been carefully planned for decades. 

The adding at this stage of the fragility ingredient is the missing piece of the puzzle in order to recover that very brand image which we mentioned before: the brand is increasingly identified with its founder and mentor, but as the dark traits of his past begin to emerge, it is no longer sufficient to embody the brand’s character with a Hollywood star, it is time for the company to work on the founder’s vulnerabilities in order to give a more human appearance to the brand. How? Stating the obvious and indisputable humane truth: humans (as Jobs is) are not perfect.

This is the precise moment in which one of the sexiest brands on Earth shows fragility and therefore, fragility becomes sexy: sexier than denim jeans, sexier than a wacky watch and an earring, sexier than a 90’s Seinfeld cut and sexier than FootLocker. Sexier than Justin Long, too?

And here we go back to the previous question: Did it work?

Earlier in March this year, Intel launched its brand new campaign by VMLY&R called “Go PC” (for the record, Intel and Apple broke their 13-year-long partnership some months before). And who do we find again? That’s right: Justin Long. Older, of course, but still perfectly in shape and still with that clever look on his face. “Hello, I’m a—Justin,” he says. “Just a real person, doing a real comparison between Mac and PC.” Exactly: just a person. 

The result is exhilarating and this is because audiences never get tired of badass brand rivalry (as of rivalry in general), in which - over many years now - each company has tried to humiliate the other with a fierce and almost unbelievable hunger for revenge (this goes both for Microsoft as for Apple).

The humanization of the brand character takes on a new level: a brand identifies itself with a testimonial, the other brand plays the victim and relaunches with an average-guy-centered communication, waiting fifteen years to take that very same testimonial pretending to be impartial in the comparison. Meaning: "At that time young Justin was paid as an actor to read those lines, but he was just a kid - now he is a grown up who has decided to speak for himself.” Of course none of this is true and Justin Long got paid god knows how much for shooting this campaign, but the implicit message is more than clear. 

We still can’t know how far this quarrel will go, what is sure is that looking for a humane surface is a returning trend as audiences need reassurance of the good will of companies. 

“Get real” says the back-up copy of the campaign. This is what matters at last: tangible, truthful, empathetic reality. The underlying identity of a brand remains the scariest factor to competitors, no matter the size of a company.

first appeared on Human Brands Observatory on October 26th 2021

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