A PC is not a stereotype. And neither are you. If you’re a PC, you belong to a community of more than a billion individuals, working, playing, and connecting. Doing their own thing. If you’re a PC, we want to celebrate you. So stand up.”

– Microsoft, “A PC is Not a Steroetype”

The irony is enough to make your head explode. The latest evolution of Microsoft’s (MSFT) new ad campaign–the one designed to seize back control of the Windows PC image that Apple has so mercilessly tarred and feathered–wasn’t even made on a PC.

It was made on a Mac. Metadata in the images of the stereotyped PC user featured on Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” site reveal that they were produced using Macs running Adobe Creative Suite 3, not PCs running Microsoft Expression Studio software.

My God. This is how Microsoft and its ad agency hope to turn Apple’s disparagement to their advantage?

I would have assumed that an advertising campaign touting Windows PCs over Macs would, you know, not be created on Macs. But then I don’t work for Microsoft. (To be fair, the Symbol devices Apple uses for roaming transactions in its retail stores do run Windows CE.

UPDATE: Microsoft issued the following statement on the matter:

As is common in almost all campaign workflow, agencies and production houses use a wide variety of software and hardware to create, edit and distribute content, including both Macs and PCs.”

UPDATE: More commentary from Daniel Eran Dilger over at Roughly Drafted, who notes that Microsoft has scrubbed the offending metadata from the images.

Previously:

• Seriously, Windows Is Just Another Way of Saying We Have Each Other?
• Which Do You Like Better, Steve: “No Mac for You!” or “Vista–Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That”?
• The Simple Life: Gates and Seinfeld, the Hilton and Richie of Tech

[Image credit: LuisDS/Flickr]