I’m a Mac. I’m a PC. I’m a … Chromebook? (Premium)

Ten years ago, Apple subjected TV viewers to a deceptive series of advertisements as part of its "Get a Mac" campaign. Now, Google is doing it too.

Mehedi wrote about Google's new ad for Chromebook, its PC and Mac alternative, yesterday. Though new, it's actually just the latest in a series of ads called "You Chromebook." Each ad has a question-based theme---"If you get creative with apps...", "If you keep going when the Wi-Fi doesn't...", and so on---where the conclusion is always "You Chromebook."

This one is called "If you want a laptop you can count on... You Chromebook." And as you can surmise from the title, it's a bit of a competitive hit job on PCs, mostly, but also Macs. The theory here is that many people are tired of all the problems they encounter on PCs (and Macs) and will find Chromebooks to be simpler and less error-prone.

I don't have a problem with any of this. Chromebooks do compete with PCs and Macs and Google has every right to advertise what it feels are the advantages of its platform. Likewise, the general premise is correct: Chromebooks are generally simpler and less error-prone than PCs and Macs, and many people are turning to them for those reasons.

But the ad. My God, Google. Please alert your ad agency that the most effective ads are both truthful---something Apple fumbled badly during the "Get a Mac" campaign a decade ago---and timely. By which I mean, there's a Windows 3.x/95-style hourglass (waiting) cursor in this advertisement. We don't actually see that in Windows 10, the system that Chromebooks compete with today.

It gets worse. There are also error dialogs from Windows XP, a system that Microsoft has not supported in over four years. There's what looks like a Windows Vista desktop background, from 2006. There are Windows 7 Basic windows, which no one ever sees anymore because any Intel integrated graphics chipset can display Aero Glass. A fake blue screen with what appears to be 8-bit-era text. It's kind of crazy.

The ad makes some good points, for sure. For example, the multiple pop-up windows from pointless anti-virus suites, which still arrive on new PCs in time-bombed configurations. But I'm curious why there is so much out-dated imagery in this ad. It's distracting. And if you know even a little bit about how dated that stuff is, it takes you out of the message.

Point being, Google is actually doing itself a disservice here. The message is fine from a high level. But I find myself rejecting it because of the images they chose.

And then there's a little bit of irony that may come back to haunt Google: What this ad doesn't highlight, of course, is the creeping complexity that has come to Chromebook thanks to the Android app compatibility that the ad does reference. There is a cost to this addition, and it's one that may harm the platform going forward as much as it helps.

Think about it: People, schools, and businesses that adopted Chromebooks in the past did so specifically ...