Seen the new UK print ads for Sun Microsystems Inc’s new Sparcclassic (from Morse Computers Ltd)? The Sparcclassic is not a horse race, they say, and Classic doesn’t mean that Sun is trying to evoke nostalogic memories of how computers used to be; it most certainly, it goes on, does not refer to its exterior architecture, pointing out that it doesn’t sit on Doric columns, and then explains that Classic here means first class and that the thing is a low-cost workstation: you can see the scene, can’t you – the client comes in all eager with his hot property and the ad people deflate him completely with Classic? You’re lumbered with a really lousy name there, aren’t you, itemising all the undesirable connotations before saying brightly The only solution, squire, is to confront it head on and neutralise all the negatives in the copy…
