I Still Don't Get the Mac Ads ...

It's not the fact that most of their ads are a far stretch at best (often, they're just factually wrong), or that they aren't well written. It's the fact that they are all attack ads. And that they've been running for years now.

Here's the deal with attack ads (in my opinion). They can be great in small doses. Short bursts. Used to disrupt the market and get people talking. However, in a sustained long-term campaign they start to piss people off and make you look a bit desperate. I think this is especially true when you're in a category where people are spending hundreds, often thousands, of dollars. You're telling people that they just made a poor $1500 decision. You're calling them stupid. And no matter how cute you are when you do it, or how funny John Hodgeman is, deep down inside the consumer knows you're calling them stupid. And calling a potential customer stupid for years on end is, well, stupid. Just read the comments on this YouTube post.