Macintosh Newspaper Ads Inadvertently Feature IBM

Apple Computer Inc. said Tuesday that it will continue running newspaper advertisements for its new Macintosh computers, even though a photograph of a competitor’s office building is inadvertently featured in the ad.

The ad, which ran in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, shows a Macintosh computer hooked up to the IBM Tower in Atlanta. Apple’s ad agency, BBDO Los Angeles, said it got the photo from a studio after requesting a generic picture of an office building.

Lisa Byrne, a spokeswoman at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, said Tuesday that company officials accept that the photo was an honest mistake. She said no changes would be made during the ad’s two-week run in three nationally distributed newspapers, USA Today, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

“We didn’t even know it was the IBM building. We still don’t know that it is,” Byrne said.

Assured by a reporter in Atlanta that the photo is of the IBM building, she said: “It’s not a large enough concern (to change it). I don’t think most of our customers would even know.”

IBM officials did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment on the ad.