I think somebody should study how MS marketing works, make it a case-study. Every time they try to be "hip", they end up looking like fools. Remember that weird Seinfeld ad? The spooky over-polished family for Windows 7? The competition
on "speed-of-opening-apps" on WP7 where nobody was allowed to win?
When they stick to the basics, they usually manage to be half-decent, like for the Windows 8 campaign: safe, completely unremarkable, but at least it didn't blow further holes in the already-tarnished brand.
The Seinfeld ad is easy to explain: never hire Crispin, Porter and Bogusky to do your ads. I wish I could find the article right now to substantiate this, but IIRC they have been known make it contractual that you will accept their creative without any input. What could possibly go wrong? Ask Groupon.
Whatever the contractual situation, CPB is a train wreck for companies looking to be hip, and they've profited substantially from their image of being the hippest game in town. Ad associations keep giving them awards year after year.
Hey, don't go knocking CP+B. Their work for Domino's is top-notch, and their Volkswagen campaign remains some of my favorite advertising period. Meanwhile, while they've had the few early misfires for Microsoft, their work promoting Windows 7 was damn good, and they've done a lot for the Surface considering they don't have a whole lot to work with.
And the Groupon ads were hilarious. Terrible ads, and they should have expected the horrible PR they received, but they were among my favorite Superbowl advertisements to actually watch. More advertisers should be willing to risk PR flack in the service of making something memorable – CP+B's ratio of wins to losses is enormous, which is why they keep landing huge clients.
As for the "accept their creative without input", yeah, advertisers love to find clients willing to give them free range, because clients are often very good at fucking up smart ideas. They don't insist on that contract, though: Groupon's blog mentions that they "gave them a shot at pitching us concepts, and they came up with an idea we couldn’t resist blowing millions of dollars on." [https://blog.groupon.com/cities/groupon-super-bowl-ads/]
I worked at Groupon when they did the Superbowl ads for us. Sorry, I'm reserving that right to knock them. I would put a smiley if I could get my head out of my hands right now.
Oof. Well, in that case your dislike of them is wholly justified. Know at least that your company's partnership with them made one Superbowl ad-watcher happier for a couple of days.
You've forgotten the crown jewel: the video for Vista SP1, "Rockin' Our Sales."[1]
I realize it was meant for internal use only, but good lord, somebody put a lot of work into this thing. It makes me so uncomfortable to watch, and to imagine the culture that might well have embraced this.
> It makes me so uncomfortable to watch, and to imagine the culture that might well have embraced this.
I've seen it happen and... it doesn't even need to be a culture, just a high-up exec who had a "genius idea", and showed it to his cat who purred, so he decided to run with it.
Now the culture around tends not to be fantastic, but you only need one person with a debatable sense of everything and high-enough up the chain that he can push stuff without any oversight (let alone undersight from those working under him)
This is the first time I've ever watched that video and it's clearly not meant to be taken seriously. They crack jokes about how "business people" hold off until SP1. From the expressions on the actors' faces to the lyrics in the song, this was supposed to make you chuckle. It was corny and IMO well written. I'd be worried about the culture that can't figure out where the humor lies in this.
The "Start me up" campaign from Microsoft with the launch of Windows 95 was both really good and hip for the time. That is, however, the only example of good marketing from Microsoft that I can remember.
Their marketing's pretty terrible even when they don't try to be hip. To promote Bing, they hired a political strategist who came up with this atrocity -- http://www.scroogled.com/
And the funny thing is that they ended up looking like tools even when they used (use?) CP + B, the same ad agency as Apple (and a very good one at that). But as anyone who has watched Mad Men knows, the clients can completely screw up a marketing campaign with their ridiculous demands.
The problem with trying to look hip is that if you have to try in the first place, you're just not hip. This is a problem that seems to have to plagued Microsoft over and over throughout the years.
wow, sounds like "a day in the life of a designer/developer". Give dozens of really useful, creative ideas - only to see them shot down, or worse watered down
Totally agree. One of the things I hate is their attempt to market design quality (in Surface specifically). They have a serious chicken-egg problem they need to address. The reason Apple's design is so successful is that the creatives of the world loved it. It then slowly gained enough inertia for it to be considered a marketing tool. Not the other way around.
>The competition on "speed-of-opening-apps" on WP7 where nobody was allowed to win?
That's wrong. Even before that specific incident, they did give out prizes to people who won, and there were multiple winners before and after. That particular incident might have been about one particular employee but certainly was not widespread. Guess which incident makes it into the news and onto HN front page?
When they stick to the basics, they usually manage to be half-decent, like for the Windows 8 campaign: safe, completely unremarkable, but at least it didn't blow further holes in the already-tarnished brand.
TL;DR: dear Microsoft, don't try to be hip.