T he Mac community has reacted with a great gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair, and terrible, angst-ridden wailing as Gateway launched an ad campaign aimed specifically at Apple and the iMac. That campaign used a study, which has been widely criticized in the Mac community as being inaccurate and misleading, to suggest that the Gateway Profile was faster than the iMac, and a TV ad series that used faked, animated movements, and spurious claims, to compare the Profile to the iMac. A new TV ad goes after a target more in keeping with Gatewayis traditional competitive market -- Dell.
The ad starts off with the camera panning up from the bottom of a list of computers. The perennial group-scream song "Dr. Who" by the Time Lords plays in the background as the computer models scroll by. [Editoris Note: Observer Brian Nichols wrote to tell us that the song being played is "Rock and Roll," by Gary Glitter, and not the remake by the Time Lords.] In the #3 spot on the list is a Dell computer. The #1 spot is held by none other than the Gateway 500S. At the top of the list is the title for the ranking, which reads "Best Overall Value," and PC Worldis (a Wintel-oriented magazine) logo sits atop that. The list is designed to appear as if it were torn from the magazine, and is taken from a list published by the magazine.
After seeing this for a bit, the screen switches to a white background with large black letter that say: "Dude, you still getting a Dell?" That line is a direct reference to the popular character named "Stephen" in Dellis TV ads. Stephenis tag line is "Dude, youire gettini a Dell."
Gatewayis site features the same tag line at the 500S Web page, though the site specifies that the 500s was rated as the Best Overall Office Value by the magazine.