Apple Computer is putting a record pounds 2.5 million spend behind a
pre-Christmas television campaign in a bid to extend its presence beyond
the business sector in the UK and into the home market.
Having allowed its major rival, Compaq, to make the running in the TV
stakes last year with its Presario home computer system, Apple intends
to fight back this season by promoting the Apple Macintosh Performa.
Two 30-second commercials produced by BBDO in New York and adapted by
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO in London will spearhead the attack, starting
on Monday in the London, Central and Scottish TV regions.
The campaign marks a further intensification in the competition between
major PC manufacturers to exploit the largely untapped UK domestic
market, where penetration levels of about 14 per cent lag well behind
the US figure of 30 per cent.
The manufacturers believe that, spurred by the cable TV explosion, the
number of British homes with PCs should rise to 32 per cent by the year
2000.
Alan Hely, Apple’s consumer marketing manager for the UK, said: ‘The
market is going berserk and the demand is there, although there’s still
a lot of ignorance about prices and products.’
The commercials aim to entice consumers into the stores by showing how
different members of a family can make use of the Performa system, which
costs from pounds 1,099.
The TV initiative is being supplemented by national press and radio
advertising.
