Katarzyna Petru
Apple is back with another installment of the iconic ad series "The Underdogs" – and this time, it's not pulling any punches. The new spot "The Underdogs: BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)" has set the tech industry ablaze, as it strikes exactly where Microsoft felt the most pain – in the catastrophic blunder of July 2024, when millions of computers worldwide experienced a simultaneous "blue screen".
“Blue Screen of Death” as a backdrop to chaos
The action of the advertisement takes place at an industry trade show. The Apple Underdogs team – well-known from previous spots – watches as the competitors' booths literally drown in the blue glow of BSODs. On Windows computer screens, the famous error message appears, while a crowd of technicians helplessly attempts to revive the hardware.
This is an obvious reference to the CrowdStrike update disaster of July 19, 2024, which paralysed 8.5 million devices worldwide and caused losses estimated at 5.4 billion dollars. Apple uses this situation with surgical precision — showing that Mac computers avoided the issues thanks to a completely different approach to system security.
Apple's Technical Response
The advertisement goes beyond just jokes. In the second part of the spot, the narrator explains why macOS is resistant to similar failures — from isolating critical processes to the lack of direct access of external drivers to the system kernel.
Apple argues that it is the security architecture that sets their platform apart from Windows, where errors in external software can paralyse global operations of companies.
Industry Divided
Reactions to the ad are extreme. Some marketing industry experts call it one of the boldest and cleverest moves by Apple since the "Get a Mac" campaign, while others accuse the company of attacking Microsoft for something that was the fault of an independent software provider.
Microsoft, on its part, in an official comment, reminds that it has already implemented new protective mechanisms to prevent similar situations in the future.
Fight for Business Trust
One thing is for sure – Apple took advantage of Microsoft's crisis as the perfect moment to remind everyone of the stability of Macs in the corporate environment. More and more corporations began testing MacBooks as an alternative to Windows laptops after the chaos in July.
The ad “The Underdogs: BSOD” is not just an advertisement — it’s a strategic move in the battle for the enterprise sector, which has been dominated by Microsoft for years.
