Apple has added three new 'Get a Mac' ads to its repertoire. Perhaps the funniest of the three is the one featuring a true superstar, none other than... the gorgeous... wait for it... Gisele Bündchen!
Surprised? Yeah, sure... Yawn... Actually, we've been waiting for her 'Get a Mac' debut ever since late May, when MacRumors (among others) broke the story that beautiful Gisele had told the whole world about her upcoming Apple gig.
And for three months, it has been nagging me: did she make Steve Jobs as furious as he normally gets when that happens?
If you're old enough, you may remember how ATI had to suffer Steve's wrath for their premature specification* of some Macs that Apple was going to announce the next day. As Inside Mac Games wrote, "the unveiling of ATI's new graphic cards based on the Radeon chip was pulled from Steve Jobs' keynote, and from demo machines on the show floor," as a consequence.
Imagine how angry Steve could have been with Gisele when she announced her supposed surprise appearance in Apple's commercials three months early!
But then I think she might have gotten away with it. She certainly is prettier than ATI, for one. And apparently, she was in the ad. No pulling action was performed this time.
Whew. Steve is human, after all.
*The term "premature specification" was coined years later by Steve Jobs.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
New 'Get a Mac' ad stars gossipy Gisele
Monday, October 09, 2006
Advertorials on MacMinute?
Maybe it's due to the time I spent at a self-respecting news publisher, but somehow I just can't stand ads disguised as news. If I go to a reliable news source such as MacMinute, I do that because I trust its editors to decide for me what's news and what's not.
What's not news (like the release of an unimportant product) is very often something that some company would very much like to be news. So much so that they would pay a news source to make it so. And if a news source accepts such payments, there goes its credibility.
If you want to make the news, do something newsworthy. If you can't, buy an ad. And if you're a news publisher, please don't sell your headlines. Your readers will hate you for that. Just sell ads, and make sure they can't be confused with news.
In the news: Wirelessly Control iPod with the Belkin SportCommand! Now, as a general rule, if it tells me to do something, it ain't news. It tends to be something else.
It doesn't get much better when you click on it:"The new iPod carrier features weather-resistant durability, and is perfect for outdoor activities, such as snowboarding, mountain biking, and hiking, notes the company."
So now it's also perfect. Thanks for the heads-up, MacMinute. What next? This just in: Refinance your mortgage!
I'm going to give MacMinute the benefit of the doubt here. It may be just some oversight or laziness from the part of the editor of the day. MacMinute might have posted Belkin's press release verbatim just because they had no time or energy to reword it.
But still, it looks bad. Now I don't know why Belkin's product is mentioned on MacMinute: Did its editors find the product important enough to grant it a headline, or did Belkin pay for the exposure? Re-publishing press releases certainly makes one lean toward the latter explanation.