Speaking of glocalization

5 February 2007, 0212 EST

Does anyone know of a systematic comparison of the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials? The US and UK ones don’t seem very different–as much as it pains me, the UK PC stacks up surprisingly well against John Hodgman.

The German and French variants look to be just dubbed version of the US editions. I can’t parse the Japanese ones, but they seem to be about as localized (or not) as the UK versions.

At the very least, the ads might provide a snapshot of similarities and differences in “loser suit” and “laid-back dude” archetypes across multiple countries. I wonder, however, how well the ads travel to other settings; do the Mac commercials work as well in the UK, France, or Japan as they do in the US?

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.