Your favorite brand is picking a fight right now. Odds are the other side doesn't even know.

It's one of the oldest moves in the book. Give the story a bad guy, and the audience picks a side without being asked.

A hammer, a runner, and a very big brother

On January 22, 1984, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, Apple ran a 60-second ad for the new Macintosh. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History tells the story.

The agency, Chiat/Day, drew on George Orwell's novel 1984. IBM's "Big Blue" played Big Brother, ruling the computer world with dull sameness. Apple would be the one who smashed it.

Ridley Scott, the director of Alien and Blade Runner, shot it in one week for about $500,000. Two hundred extras were paid $125 a day to shave their heads and march in a line. The only color was a runner's red shorts and Apple's rainbow logo.

Notice what the ad skips. It shows almost nothing about the computer. The villain does the selling.

Two guys and a white room

Twenty-two years later, Apple did it again, with jokes. Starting in 2006, the "Get a Mac" ads put two men on a plain white background. One wore casual clothes and said, "Hello, I'm a Mac." The other wore a suit and tie and said, "And I'm a PC."

Justin Long played the Mac. John Hodgman played the PC. The PC was polite, stiff, and always stuck. The Mac was relaxed and fixed things.

The creative team made 323 spots. Only 66 aired, according to Campaign. That is a lot of throwaway jokes, and it's a good reminder to write plenty of drafts.

The villain here wasn't evil. He was annoying. That's easier to laugh at, and easier to leave.

Why a common enemy sticks

There's a bit of science here. Researchers ran two surveys and an experiment on this. They found that sharing a negative opinion about a third person builds closeness faster than sharing a positive one. (Bosson, Johnson, Niederhoffer and Swann, Personal Relationships, 2006.)

Plain version: two people who both hate the same slow printer will bond faster than two who both like the same pizza. Sad, but true.

A good brand story uses that. It says, "We both know the problem. We're on the same side."

Where the villain backfires

Slate's Seth Stevenson called the Mac ads "mean spirited" and wondered if "smug superiority" was a good brand strategy. Fair question.

Microsoft hit back in late 2008 with "I'm a PC," showing real people proudly saying they were PCs. A bad guy can answer back.

So keep your villain honest. Pick a problem or a habit, not a person. "Pointless meetings" is a safe enemy. Your competitor's name on a billboard is a lawsuit with legs.

And keep it true. If the enemy is invented, readers can tell.

A made-up example

Say you run a hardware shop. (This is invented, so don't look for it.) The villain isn't the big box store. It's the 40-minute search for one screw.

Your story: "Ask Dolores. She knows which aisle. She's already handing you the screw." Same fight. No names named.

The quiet part

A villain is really a way to say what you stand for. The bigger your stance, the less you need to shout about the other side.

How to use it in your copy

Name the enemy in one line.
Write "We're against ____" and fill in the blank with a problem, not a company.

Make it specific.
"Boring slide decks" beats "bad communication." A person should be able to picture it.

Test the smug check.
Read it aloud. If you sound like you're gloating, cut a line and add a joke at your own expense.

Show the way out.
Spend as much time on the better path as on the problem.