An apple a day may keep doctors away, but a new study claims that some Apple computer users will not be able to avoid a superiority complex.
The study, conducted in October by Nielsen Online, showed Mac users generally see themselves as open-minded, socially liberal and 46 percent more assured of their own superiority than PC users.
Mindset Media, an online advertising network, created a profile of a typical Mac user using survey data from 7,500 computer users. Mindset Media spokeswoman Lauren Hudson said she was surprised when the hard data confirmed their intuitions.
“If you look at Apple’s creative campaigning, it’s really tell-tale of the message they are trying to push, that there is a real difference between Mac users and PC users,” she said.
She said Mac owners typically topped the open-minded and less dogmatic categories of the survey, and this attitude can result from the different roles of Macs and PCs.
“Traditionally PCs have been geared towards functionality so Mac and PC users would be different in the way they are wired,” she said.
Peter Geisheker, chief executive officer of the Geisheker Group, a marketing firm, said the arrogant mentality of Mac users comes from Apple’s marketing strategy, based on the idea that using a Mac avoids the problems that PCs have.
“They make it seem like if you use PCs you are not being a person that is innovate, edgy, smart or creative,” he said.
Geisheker said targeted advertising reduces the number of people who choose to buy Macs.
“People will say, ‘I’m purposely not going to buy a Mac because I don’t want to be the type of person that a Mac person is,'” he said.
By making the PCs users seem slow and backwards in technology, Apple could alienate potential customers, Geisheker said.
“With the iPods . . . the ads don’t say that if you have an MP3 player you are dumb,” he said. “It’s much more of a friendly, happy, general market-type advertising, which is why they sell so many more iPods than computers.”
Despite what he called Apple’s narrow advertising target, Geisheker said the computer company’s strategy develops a loyal niche market.
Boston University School of Management senior Stephanie Smith said she loves her MacBook for its user friendliness and problem-free operation, and said she has had her computer for more than a year and it has not frozen.
She said her only complaint is the lack of custom options, and said Mac users might feel superior because their computers tend to work better.
“When people have problems with PCs then Mac people tend to rub it in that they don’t have problems,” Smith said. “If your PC is dying then people are like, ‘Well, you should get a Mac.'”
College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Eric Bilbo said he prefers PCs, which are cheaper, and said he sees no difference between users of the rival computer types.
“If you have a Mac that doesn’t necessarily mean you are more open-minded or of higher intelligence,” he said. “I know a lot of people who have PCs or Macs but I don’t judge somebody by their computers.”