Apple released a new Get a Mac ad sometime ago. It’s a great ad but if you know the back story its even funnier. I thought everyone knew it but my colleague didn’t when I showed it to her today, so I thought I’d share it here too.

Here’s the new ad, and the back story follows after the jump.

‘Bean Counter’

The back story

A few months back, Microsoft awarded a USD300 million ad budget to ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky to rebrand Microsoft as a cool company. Apple’s clever ad basically used Microsoft’s budget against themselves by asking “If Windows Vista is having problems, why are you spending all that money in advertising and not fixing Vista?” While it may not be totally fair, but Apple’s advertising agency is really smart I think.

Bill Gates doing the Robot

I also think that the first ads that Crispin Porter + Bogusky produced were pretty good. Bill Gates is a super geek, and quite a good actor as well (link to the above ad). Those ads mysteriously got canned, and then we got the silly “I’m a PC” ads instead.

Did Apple or Microsoft’s ads influence you in any way at all? Catch all the other Get a Mac ads on Apple.com.