The original American ads starred Justin Long and John Hodgman. For the recent British campaign, these roles were recast with the popular British comedic duo of Robert Webb as Mac and David Mitchell as PC. Besides a change in actors, the British adverts are altered to appeal to their British market viewers. This advertising technique has been labeled "appealing to the target audience." With the cultural differences between two nations, the advertising company had to do extensive research in discovering what best appeals to their British audience. Various things I noticed in comparison to the American ads were: the obvious change in dialect (from American English to British English), some differences in words used (for example, PC describes a virus as being a "humdinger" instead of a "doozy"), and generally longer ad format running for 40 seconds rather than the American norm of 30 seconds. I also thought the character of Mac in the British adverts seemed a bit more self-centered. His facial expressions are not as warm like our American version.
I have linked some of my favorite British 'Get a Mac' campaign TV adverts for you to view. What else do you notice that is different? Does this version appeal to you? Apple Inc recently has aired some new commercials in Japan. How would you anticipate the campaign there would be modified to specially appeal to the viewing audience?
1 comment:
I wonder how my humvee v.s. hybrid campaign would differ here. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think they would need one here. I think they're already sensitive enough to the environment and the importance of "going green". I guess that's just one example of knowing you're market and knowing what needs hype and what doesn't!
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