
New Microsoft Commercials Are Live  - nickb
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/18/new-microsoft-ads-are-live/
======
jwilliams
This is a bit of a change in direction.

Normally, it's only the little guy that can recognise competitors in
advertising. Apple can point at Microsoft because they are the challenger.

For an established dominant player like Microsoft to directly reference Apple,
then it can backfire - it's giving Apple credibility and legitimacy to
Microsoft's own customers. e.g. "If Microsoft want to respond to Apple, then
Apple must be threatening them - maybe Apple is doing something right?".

So whilst these ads seem ok, there might be more subtle implications.

~~~
briansmith
If your competitor bashes you in their ads and they have a valid point, there
is nothing you can really do to fight back. But, if your competitor's ads are
based on unfounded or misleading claims, you can get big points if you respond
in a clever manner. That is exactly what is going on here. Apple's underlying
message is that cool people use macs and boring people use PCs. Well, it isn't
hard to find a bunch of cool people that use PCs to refute that claim. The
hard part is packaging them up, and I think Microsoft did a good job with that
here.

The other thing is that Microsoft can kill the PC vs. Mac commercials simply
by drowning them out. The Bill+Jerry ads were a few minutes after the PC vs.
Mac ads during the same show on ABC (or NBC, I forget). If they do the same
thing, where stations run 1 PC vs. Mac commercial followed by two "I'm a PC"
commercials, they will deflate the PC vs. Mac message, and actually kind of
turn it around to Microsoft's favor.

Plus, as people get tired of "I'm a PC" they will get tired of PC vs. Mac too
because there is such an obvious association there. Even if people have the
"I'm a PC" ads, they still serve a valuable purpose.

As for the specific claims that the PC vs. Mac commercials make, I'm not sure
it makes sense for Microsoft to counter all of them. But, some of them
definitely _could_ be countered. For example, the "it just works" ad is easy
to counter. Just fine some hardware that has drivers for Windows and doesn't
have drivers for a Mac. Then, have a commercial where you have 10 people with
10 different brands of computers. Have the first 9 plug the device into PCs
and say "It works!" Then, have the 10th plug the device into a mac and (insert
clever imagery here). This is not hard to do, because in reality more stuff
"just works" with PCs than it does with Macs.

------
UandIblog
Is it possible there is no hope for MicroSoft? It just seems that competing
with Apple the way that they are is the wrong move somehow. Apple has a
massively powerful emotional branding philosophy in play, shouldn't MicroSoft
use it's rapidly dwindling might to chase and conquer a different market? They
even seem a bit late to the cloud computing party as well, sure they are
involved but they let so many other firms get a foothold. It's as if Apple and
cloud computing platforms are doing to Microsoft what MicroSoft did to IBM..
Am I nuts here?

~~~
snprbob86
Apple's annual revenue is ~$20B. Microsoft's is ~$51B with significantly
higher profit margins.

Don't you think that "no hope" is kind of a stretch?

~~~
13ren
There's a long tech history of companies making record profits just before
they go out of business.

It happens when they hone their product during the adolescence of a disruptive
innovation. Microsoft is staring down the twin barrels of linux and SaaS. Its
products have pretty much maxed out their potential (read: they've run out of
runway), but are neither free nor services. It's a different game. [ _edit_
also, wine works amazingly well]

Meanwhile, Apple heads the disruptive innovation of iPods. They'll need
another disruption soon though. Tech demands it.

~~~
briansmith
Microsoft's SaaS approach is compelling even if it is late in getting to
market.

Want hosted email? They'll host it and it is guaranteed to be 100% compatible
with Outlook/Exchange because it _is_ Exchange. Want hosted groupware, etc.?
They'll host it. Change your mind and want to host it yourself? Okay, they'll
sell you the _same software_ that the hosted solution is running on, to run on
your own hardware. I bet they will eventually even help you migrate it onto
hardware that you can purchase from them, so that you have nothing to set up.

In contrast, none of their competitors have 100% Exchange compatibility
because they are not running Exchange. Very few of their competitors let you
change your mind and painlessly switch from cloud-hosted to self-hosted and
back as you see fit. And, most of their competitors don't have any solution
for hybrid systems where self-hosted applications and data are automatically
replicated onto the cloud, or where the cloud can be used to incrementally add
capacity for applications you are currently hosting yourself.

------
woodsier
I'm a PC and I sell fish.

~~~
pygy
Sounds like "I'm selfish". Blunder?

------
gojomo
Oh, good, more stories about Microsoft commercials!

I know when I get together with hackers, there's nothing we like more than
watching TV commercials, hearing what tech bloggers think about TV
commercials, and talking about TV commercials. Sometimes it keeps us up all
night!

Having stories about advertisements on the front page also makes up for the
lack of other ads, which has always made this site look kind of geeky and
'small potatoes' to me. Corporate marketing on the front page means we've
arrived into the mainstream, finally!

And did you catch Eva Longoria Parker in the ad? Wouldn't kick her out of bed
to check email on a MacBook Air, that's for sure! Isn't the wait for the
season premiere of Desperate Housewives killing you? Me too!

I, for one, welcome News.YC's new video viral marketing overloads.

~~~
mynameishere
Have you seen this one yet:

<http://frinko.com/you-might-have-to-watch-this-twice.html>

------
axod
I'm confused. "I'm a pissy" was it? What are these ads for?

Come on Microsoft, make some cool software and advertise it. Remember? writing
cool software? innovating?

~~~
babo
Do you heard about Haskell or F#? They a related to Microsoft research without
any marketing crap, I really appreciate that.

------
chaostheory
I hated the Seinfeld commercials, but I like these replacement commercials.
They make sense in trying to break the PC's stereotype, as opposed to the
garbage they put out before which can be summed up as: <http://www.penny-
arcade.com/comic/2008/9/15/> (language may be nsfw depending on how stuck up
your company is)

------
brandonkm
...but i'm not a PC.

oh well, still pretty decent commercials and any response to the mac guy ads
is better than nothing.

~~~
noonespecial
I don't know if thats true. For Microsoft, a company that's so big and should
have so much to say about their new product, a reactionary approach to a
smaller competitor seems somehow wrong.

~~~
unalone
That, and:

[http://www.theangrydrunk.com/2008/09/19/im-microsoft-and-
i-d...](http://www.theangrydrunk.com/2008/09/19/im-microsoft-and-i-dont-have-
a-clue/)

Microsoft is digging itself into a hole, 'twould seem.

------
pshc
Hmm, these remind me a lot of political commercials. Rather than discuss the
features and merits (issues and policies) over competitors, they concentrate
on identifying with the customer ("Here's a candidate you could have a beer
with!"). Apple commercials are annoying, but at least they have substance.

------
Tichy
Unbearable - cool people in general don't go around telling everybody how cool
they are. I would have thought elitist marketing companies would know such
things.

~~~
iron_ball
So... "Apple: Einstein and Gandhi would have loved us" doesn't count?

------
fiaz
This just in...

Apple has changed their advertising strategy: Justin Long is now going to call
himself Safari and John Hodgman will be referring to himself as Internet
Explorer.

------
lowkey
I like them! (and I'm a Mac/Linux head)

------
burp
The slogan is odd, in a life without walls windows wouldn't exist .

