I love Microsoft's Windows operating system. Its easy-to-use features help a technological dud like me achieve some semblance of control and fluency in the sand trap that is the digital world. I also like Google Chrome, seeing that it doesn't crash as often as its competitor Internet Explorer, and that it works in perfect harmony with my aforementioned operating system. What I'm not a fan of is when the companies behind such ingenious products, Microsoft and Google respectively, sling mud at each other as they scrabble to the top of the technological industry. One such example is the newly released Google Chromebook.
Back in 2011, Google released a laptop known as the Google Chromebook. It was advertised as a fun, modern new product with a very low price, as evidenced by the recent ad in the link up above. And it has certainly gained popularity, having reached a 9.6% share in North American businesses and institutions, and 21% of the associated notebook sales market in only 2 years, according to Forbes magazine. This has caused Microsoft to make a new addition to their old "Scroogled" campaign, in which the company points out the various flaws within Google and its products. In this recent ad, Microsoft pokes fun at the Chromebook, by illustrating the troubles of a young woman, who hopes to exchange the laptop for a ticket to Hollywood. She is ridiculed by the pawn shop owner, who says that what she is proposing to sell is not a "real laptop" and that without Internet, it is "a brick".
Obviously this ad uses humor to emphasize the ridiculousness of the Chromebook, as well as Google in general. Even the very situation that leads to the episode within the commercial, that of a woman hoping to cash in the laptop for a ticket to Hollywood, has a bit of hilarity attached to it, seeing that the idea is most emphatically that of a dreamer, no matter what brand or company the laptop is from. In other words, one simply doesn't walk into a pawn shop expecting a ticket to Hollywood. In fact, this very surreal situation is reminiscent to that of a reality TV show, and upon further research, it turns out that the pawn shop owners within this ad are indeed members of an apparently popular show called "Pawn Stars". Therefore, the belittling of the laptop by these individuals might hold more weight with fans of the show, who number in the millions. Indeed, the commercial can be seen as a bit of a reverse testimonial for the Chromebook.
The use of these TV personalities also helps with the use of ethos within the ad, as they, being pawn store owners, might be considered more of the experts as to the value of such objects. There is even the use of logos within the commercial as well, since they use facts, such as the point that the Chromebook runs on mostly Web-based applications, to show its inferiority to other laptops. They also touch on other Google issues, such as the past privacy scandals, to show why turning to this company is a bad choice. And although it is never said outright, it is surely implied within the ad that Microsoft products, like Windows and Office, are the better and more practical choice for software.
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