With tablets now commanding 50% of the computer market the main players are getting competitive in the their advertising. On the one side is Microsoft with its "Honestly" campaign for the Surface; on the other, Apple with its "Poetry" advertisement for the iPad.
Of course it's all a rematch of the Mac vs. PC commercials of a few years back. In those, as you may recall, Apple's young, hip-but-not-hipster spokesmodel ran metaphoric cool circles around the awkward, ineffectual, PC fussbudget.
You'd think Microsoft would have learned something from that. Instead, the current ads seem to be doubling down on the "I'm a hardworking grind" theme.
This was hinted at in the spots a year ago showing baseball scouts competing for a recruit. The ineffectual, whiny iPad-wielding scout (turnabout is fair play) couldn't show his boss back in the office the video of the player while looking up the pitcher's stats and keeping the audio going. The scout with the effortlessly multi-tasking Microsoft tablet was walking to the mound to sign up the pitcher, leaving the iPad scout pathetically tapping his screen.
In the "Honestly" series we meet a schoolteacher who warms up to the idea of his students using a tablet because it makes them more productive. We see a man scrunched up in coach trying to get some work done ("This is my office"). A young woman concedes that she likes the versatility of the Microsoft tablet because it can be used for her "me" time (i.e., fun), but first she assures us the computer is for school.
Dutiful. Hardworking. Increased productivity. Neither the high admirability of the occupations nor their necessity in society doesn't distract from their conventionality.
"Honestly" strikes one as being less effective than the previous side by side ads, the ones where the iPad's voice Siri gets her comeuppance over, again, the tasks one can get done on the Microsoft tablet that "she" can't handle. When the commercial closed with the price differential one can only think, Advantage, Microsoft. It seemed only a shallow, status-hungry snob would prefer the Apple tablet when a less expensive tablet that could outperform it was available.
There's only one problem. The iPad consumer believes there is nothing it can't do, which is what keeps the plastic swiping at the Apple Store.
The "Poetry" ad shown during the Golden Globes exploits that belief, that fervent wish, within an inch if it's life.
First of all, the images are gorgeous. While the Microsoft ads are several steps above Exasperated Mom With a Mop commercials they don't stand out remarkably from what's seen before them and after. Poetry, however, loops from a wide, gray sea to a snow-covered peak to a bird's eye view of a touching-the-sky turbine. There's a Japanese Noh actor preparing then performing in full dress; a bright-eyed backpacking couple beneath a strand of fluttering Himalayan prayer flags; and a guy at the side of the road, chasing a storm.
Not all of the images are dramatic. My favorite, being a scribbler myself, is of a young man working the night shift at a parking lot, tapping away at a screenplay or novel. Or a poem.
And then there's the copy. It's actor-comic Robin Williams, his voice long stripped of all silliness, reciting his stand on the chairs speech from the film The Dead Poets Society.
"Medicine, law, business, engineering - these are noble pursuits, necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love - these are what we stay alive for." Not, he doesn't need to spell out, filling in cells on an Excel spreadsheet while on a flight, not obediently inserting ourselves in pre-fabricated employment slots.
"The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?" It leaves the viewer with an invitation to contribute something of her own, his own, to a great Whitmanesque tapestry.
Ultimately, it probably does not really matter which machine can do more stuff. As with our brains, most people will probably only tap into a small percentages of either tablet's capabilities.
To be sure, there's a no-nonsense demographic that would be perfectly content with a Microsoft tablet; Android sales continue to outpace iPad's. Still, the iPad folks are banking on there being a more passionate demographic to whom the Apple ad will appeal - creatives, young people, boomers in their sixties who remember the '60's. It's that implied compliment of the viewer having the talent, soul, and intelligence to bring Into being something worthy of Walt Whitman that will continue to shift iPad units.
Honestly.
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