I think the ad is rather brilliant. The whole "wtf" vibe is what they were going for. You have to always remember that this ad and the followup ads are part of a much larger campaign that is basically going to be a saga of microsoft advertising. Think of this as one of the first few pages in a chapter within a long book.
The 'wtf' vibe is also generating all kinds of noise about the ad. Every Mac related website in my RSS feed had an article about it, and it's on every news site I visit. The average consumer may be slightly confused, but the internet large is having it shoved in their face. Isn't that what you'd want with an aggressive ad campaign like this?
I don't know what you all are talking about: clearly this is just a teaser ad for Microsoft's new Edible PC. It comes in three editions: moist ($100), chewy ($150), and moist and chewy ($350).
the ad shows a normal conversation between two people. it wants to show that pcs are for normal people. this is achieved because it makes you think: hey look here are two famous people discussing something normal...
that's the thought that runs in your subconsious and thats what microsoft wants, where instead the message of Apple ads is hey "we use mac, we are better than you" bullshit...which apple's message is annoyingly imprinted in their users mind, reproduced in an annoying way by most of them.
"the ad shows a normal conversation between two people."
maybe if those 2 people lived in the world of seinfeld it'd be normal... but I didn't feel it was very normal; it was weird like the sitcom
hmmm to me the message of the Apple ads isn't 'we are better than you', it's more like 'why put up with this crap anymore? life can be easier if you try something new'
You obviously don't buy into the whole idea of the subconscious. If you have to explain it FOR it to work then yes it has most likely failed. But whether or not you have to (or even can) explain WHY it works is a whole different thing.
BTW I'm not sticking up for the ad. I doesn't do anything for me.
David Ogilvy, in his seminal "Ogilvy on Advertising," describes the paradox of the "Gorilla in a Jock Strap." He explains that if what you want is buzz and recall, you simply show something outrageous, and people remember the ad. Put the company's logo on the jock strap, and people remember the brand.
But do people buy the product? Does the ad reposition the brand or company?? It is certainly possible that this advertisement does either or both of these things, but simply generating buzz in and of itself is not a valuable use of an advertising budget.
Now that I think about it, compare and contrast this to the famous 1984 ad. I love it, it's great theatre. It made everybody talk about Macintosh--because it mentioned the brand. It positioned the brand as being against IBM and corporate computing.
This ad is empty calories, buzz without direction.
Think about this: if all they wanted was this level of buzz, they could have put out a press release indicating they were buying Yahoo. Same buzz, doesn't cost M$300.
The yahoo announcement did cost Microsoft shareholders deer ;-) But to the point, I agree with the principle you cite, but I don't think this ad is just empty buzz. I think making two people who are so outrageously successful look normal and a little stupid is supposed to make it easier for other normal folks to stand by their Microsoft PC buying choice in spite of Apple's coolness.
I accept that the ad may do more than just generate buzz. I hope so! As much as I dislike MSFT's current policies, I'd rather see them change than die.
do normal people want pcs for "normal people"? Like, didn't it use to be that teens wanted to be or at least look older, married men wanted to look single, 30 years old women wanted to play lolitas once again etc? But now, "normal" people just want a brown box with a stupid OS just like everybody else. Really? Are you sure?
Spending $300m on an ad campaign to inspire consumers to reconnect with Microsoft not only feels desperate, but seems such a waste when it could have been channeled into making better products or hiring better hackers.
Microsoft is spending all kinds of money on both products and great hackers already. The biggest problem they have is their overall strategy.
With the cash they have on hand, I have never understood why they aren't doing more parallel development in smaller groups to let the good ideas happen organically. They continue to try to fit every new product into the existing Microsoft ecosystem -- something that is beginning to fail.
"They continue to try to fit every new product into the existing Microsoft ecosystem"
As companies get both bigger and older, internal politics seem to have a larger impact on company policy. There are surely many Microsoft employees who have a vested interest in keeping things exactly how they are, investing money and resources in existing projects that maintain or expand their power base, regardless of the benefit or lack-thereof to the company as a whole. It's a type of corporate inertia that's difficult to overcome once in place.
This reminds me of the huge campaign they ran a couple of years back, the one with the dinosaurs, I'm sure you remember it. The idea behind it was that a load of people in offices ran around with dinosaur heads. The point of the ads were that you were a dinosaur if you didn't upgrade to the new office.
However what the ad accomplished was that Microsoft got associated with dinosaurs - they managed to brand their own software as old and cranky.
I was absolutely flabbergasted that a company with that kind of resources couldn't at least find an intern to tell them that this was a really really bad idea. This looks like more of the same...
i liked it. it reminded me of the way william shatner has reinvented himself by hamming up his old cliche. he is now way more interesting. if bill gates could PR himself the role of 'PC genius doofus dropped back into normal world' with the help of some off the wall humour of JS - i think this could be a really interesting ad-war.
Yeah, maybe John Hodgeman could be tapped to play the part of the doofus.
I'll await further installments with interest. Maybe someone a bit more young and trendy could be be picked to play alongside the Gates / Hodgeman PC-analog...
I think that's exactly the point they're trying to make: We may never catch up with Apple culturally, just as Warren Buffett may never catch with some sleek hedge fund type culturally. We're normal people, but we're still kind of funny and get things done (such as earning a billion or ten) without worrying too much about fashion.
Can buying a shoe that fits your feet be so difficult? Actually it is, for me at least... Personally, for me it is the shirt. Even if you find a shoe that fits you there are onlookers criticizing that its not the right fit for you.
Now, how about getting the right operating system for your personal computer? Can some company satisfy every customer find their perfect operating system?. Its a challenge, I would say... and then there are some who want it moist and chewy, not dry and crunchy.
Just my interpretation and a thought that crossed my mind as I was trying to download a patch for my machine...
This advertising campaign will be a great critical success. It's a sublimely entertaining advertisement and a really nice thing to do for Bill Gates. This 300MM blitz will really humanize Bill Gates to the TV watching public.
Of course, even the best advertising company can't save Microsoft. They need a miracle.
How long do you think it will take for the market cap of Amazon and Google to surpass Microsoft? In 100 years and beyond, Microsoft will disappear and Google will achieve immortality, at least until we abolish capitalism.
"In 100 years and beyond, Microsoft will disappear and Google will achieve immortality"
I suspect that, in a mere 25 years, Google will get the same respect that Microsoft does today (ie some, at least from some quarters, but much less than heyday levels). Some young bucks will come along with the same combination of smarts and business savvy and build the next big thing, and lots of the bright people currently at Google will have retired or moved on to other things.
Sure... I suspect that the market cap of Google will have surpassed Microsoft in 5 years. Amazon, in 25. In 100 years, Microsoft will certainly be entirely irrelevant if not completely gone.
I think Microsoft wins again because we DID watch the ad didn't we?
The problem with your statement, is that watches mean nothing if they do not sell the item. Selling the item means nothing if people don't view the ad.
One does not work without the other. In this case its getting views but its not selling, educating or performing anything to those views. This ad is nothing but empty views.
Their product is on 95%+ of a huge market worldwide and everyone already uses it and knows about them. They don't need to sell their core product as the OEMs do it for them, and I seriously doubt that their commercials have any real impact on their sales.
The thing is Microsoft have succeeded despite their brand rather than because of it, and the company have long been demonised and seen as the convicted monopolist and stuffy and corporate. Notice how the Microsoft brand is played down on both the Zune and Xbox 360 sites for example.
Trying to humanise the company and making them seem less corporate by giving them a friendly face is probably a good thing for their brand in the long term, will make people associate with their brand more positively and in my view is certainly a better direction than yet another Vista campaign that will do little to raise awareness further and shift very few copies.
Honestly, I think no matter what we do we are doomed to be consumed by microsoft. I love linux. I have some friends who are staunch Mac users and others who eat, sleep, and pee linux. All of them have microsoft products on their computers. Schools, offices, homes, microsoft is everywhere all over the world.
The sad fact is that pc's are cheap and most people (general population) are lazy or uninterested in installing (or even learning about) other operating systems.
The product is sort of forced upon us. All we can really do is cope.
It seems like a lot of people upgrade their windows operating system when a new one comes out (except with vista because of all of the bad reviews).
