Qualcomm Enlists 'I'm a Mac' Ad Star for Snapdragon PC Skit

Justin Long, the face of Apple's iconic "I'm a Mac" commercials, now stars in a short Qualcomm skit promoting Snapdragon-powered PCs.

At the Computex 2024 keynote, Qualcomm unveiled the new skit featuring Long, who is well-known for his role in Apple's "Get a Mac" commercials nearly two decades ago. Long is depicted as being overwhelmed by a barrage of notifications about app compatibility, low disk space, and battery issues in macOS, prompting him to search for an alternative in the form of a Windows on ARM PC. The ad concludes with Long stating, "Things change," a sentiment echoed by Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon during the event's closing remarks. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips debut in new Copilot Plus PCs on June 18.

Long's participation in the skit is the latest development in a series of marketing strategies where tech companies use his association with the "I'm a Mac" persona to promote their products. The trend began in 2017 when Huawei featured Long in an ad for its Mate 9 smartphone. In 2021, Intel also employed Long to create commercials that praised PCs and mocked various aspects of Apple's M1 MacBooks, including the Touch Bar and its limited color options.

Apple launched the original "Get a Mac" ad campaign in 2006. Long played a personified Mac, characterized as easygoing and efficient, while John Hodgman portrayed a PC, depicted as conformist and prone to problems like viruses and system crashes. The ads ran for three years and consisted of 66 different commercials, although Long revealed in 2019 that approximately 300 were filmed.