Comic Transcript

PHIL: Hallo Alice. I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier today.

ALICE: About not dressing better than Brian during office hours?

PHIL: That too — no, I mean about how we need to come up with a brand and lifestyle identity in order to give Apple the old run for their money.

ALICE: Yeah, tricky problem. Apple already has the squeaky clean image locked down tight. If we tried to move in on it our customers would just laugh.

PHIL: You’re probably right. But we don’t need to try to compete for the same image. We need to use an image, project a lifestyle, that people will like better.

ALICE: What are you talking about? Everybody wants to be the Mac guy.

PHIL: Only in comparison to his comic foil. But that’s the thing — Apple is selling a comedy. We need to sell something that will make the customer feel they’re buying into an epic lifestyle. Something gritty and powerful. Something that will take our most commonly perceived flaws and make them an essential part of the overall image.

(CUT TO: Office, shown in black and white. A man in a fedora slumps behind a wooden desk, his head covered. The window blinds are drawn.)

NARRATOR: The pain in my head and the half-empty bottle of Scotch on my desk told me everything I needed to know about the night before. I’d crashed; now I was rebooting. That’s the way it works in this concrete jungle of empty promises and broken dreams. This is my city. I’m a PC.