I’m a Mac, and I Pursue the Scientific Truth at Any Cost

My father was an advertising executive, and he taught me always to judge a product by the quality of its commercials.

Better products tend to have better commercials. Even though I am a lifelong and very dedicated Macintosh user (I’ve just purchased my 12th Macintosh in 23 years), my father in me can’t help but admire the latest commercial campaign for Windows from Bill Gates and Co.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and I have to admit that I love the latest series of “I’m a PC” commercials from the Redmond campus, itself a response to Apple’s enormously successful “Mac vs. PC” series of commercials, which has inspired and spawned so many spoofs, imitations, and offshoots. Of course, it’s not enough to shake my fundamental loyalty to Apple; nothing can ever do that. But I enjoy watching the commercials, partly as an evolutionary psychologist.

I particularly like the longer (60-second) version of the original commercial (before civilians were invited to upload their own video clips), which features Tony Parker and Eva Longoria in the middle. Tony Parker on the poolside says “I’m a PC, and I have three rings” (referring to his three NBA championship rings), then the camera pans right to Eva Longoria, on the same poolside, saying “I’m a PC, and I have one ring” (referring to her wedding ring).

From an evolutionary psychological perspective, the reason Longoria has one ring (being married to Parker) is precisely Parker’s three rings (being a good enough basketball player to win three NBA championships). She would not have married him if he wasn’t a successful basketball player or otherwise comparably distinguished. Parker has had to work very hard to become a star athlete, so that Longoria would say yes. Longoria is a major TV star in her own right, but that of course is not the reason Parker wanted to marry her. He would have married her even if she was a totally unknown receptionist at the Spurs headquarters office in San Antonio as long as she looked the same as she does.

Unfortunately for Longoria, because I am an evolutionary psychologist, I also know some things about her marriage that she herself does not yet know. First, more than likely, Parker is not being faithful to Longoria (although there is a good chance that Longoria herself is aware of this). There is absolutely no point in working very hard all his life to become a top NBA star if he has to limit himself to one mate at a time. Just like every other man, Tony Parker does everything he does in order to get laid (again and again). Second, because Longoria is seven years older than Parker, their marriage is unfortunately doomed to be short-lived. Of course, Hollywood marriages typically don’t last long (and there is an evolutionary psychological reason for that), but the fact that Longoria is so much older than Parker will be an additional factor in their short-lived marriage. I would predict that their marriage will end before Longoria turns 40.

But I digress. Going back to Mac vs. PC, I don’t want to tell Steve Jobs and his team how to do their job of selling Macs. (That would have been my father’s job.) However, it seems to me that Apple is missing a golden opportunity for increased sales and market share, after the launch of Window’s current advertising campaign. It seems to me that, if Apple wanted to increase its market share dramatically against Windows-based machines, all it now needs are five simple words:

Deepak Chopra uses a PC.

Use a PC, and be a douche bag like Deepak Chopra. What could possibly be more effective?