Microsoft's $300 million ad campaign tumbles downhill with new PC ads - Page 4

I really appreciate AppleInsider's thoughtful article about the ads. There's a lot of marketing and creative sense to AI's criticisms of the new Microsoft ads.
But on a gut level, I think the ads work in one way...

1) the Seinfeld ads gutturally make you go "Huh?" Almost as a "HEY WE HAVE SOMETHING NEW TO SAY"

2) The new "I'm a PC" ads are effective in that they give PC owners a private defense to feel okay with their purchase decision. Which is sort of an anecdote to the Apple ads which strive to make PC owners seem uncool and old and stodgy. I also don't think enough people equate "PC" with something other than Microsoft/Windows (partly thanks to Apple's ads) to render Microsoft's use of the line "I'm a PC" ineffective for their own brand.

How about if Apple ads started saying "I'm a Mac" , "and I'm Windows"?

I think it's better for Apple that people think of a PC as meaning 'my computer' , which could be driven by either Apple or Microsoft. The concept of 'switching' is quite daunting for people who are not already Mac-aware.

( I understand that 'PC' means something specific in the industry, but it's not how non-tech people use the word ).

Then Microsoft's ads look even sillier. All those people saying "I'm a PC". So what?

One stock market columnist said the MS ads were probably intended to position Apple so it couldn't continue poking fun at the PC Guy without looking elitist--and he thought they achieved their aim.

An Animated Cartoon Ad for Apple

Here’s an animated cartoon that would be a neat ad for Apple. The artwork would be Simpson’s-like, especially the first view from above, which would resemble, in style, aerial views of “Springfield.”

1.\tAn isolated medieval-style circular tower, surrounded by a small, shallow moat. A small white pennant with four color-quadrants flutters from its top. It has a window about a dozen feet high, with a 2-by-4-type crossbar holding it shut from the outside.

2.\tA medieval-style princess (in a pointed hat with a gauzy trailer) sits in her room, which is dark and gloomy, with cobwebs and roaches on the floor. She is squinting at the window, which is heavily coated with grime, and trying to paint the trees outside.

3.\tShe spies an elephant approaching the moat, lowering his trunk into it, and drinking. She quickly paints “Wash Me” on the back of her canvas. Then she places it in the window.

4.\tThe elephant notices the sign and gives the window a mighty squirt, cleaning it. The princess removes the sign and gives him a smile and/or a wave and points to the crossbar. The elephant, with the “fingertips” of his trunk, then lifts out the crossbar and drops it. The princess swings open the window and stretches out her arms. The elephant wraps his trunk around her waist and lifts her out through the window and onto the back of his neck. He then returns to drinking from the moat.

5.\tA fire-breathing dragon hops up, making ducking and lunging motions and grinning wolfishly. A squirt from the elephant and the dragon’s flames are extinguished; he stands back, thoroughly drenched. (A hissing sound is heard as his flames go out.) The elephant trumpets in triumph and walks off.

6.\tA series of snippets show the elephant crossing the moat, covering lots of landscape (putting the tower miles in the distance), stepping over a fence, and stopping in an idyllic orchard.

7.\tThe princess grabs a rope ladder and lifts herself onto the porch of a charming, hobbit-style tree-house in one of the trees. Through a picture window, its inside can be seen to be attractive. She looks around the charming landscape while the camera’s eye tracks what she sees.

8.\tThe princess reaches out to an apple hanging from the tree, takes a bite, removes it from her mouth, and smiles.

9.\tThe camera zooms in on the bitten-out apple, which morphs into the striped Apple logo.

10.\tThe words “The Grass IS Greener” (in Apple-stripes) fade in, accompanied by the sounds of an elephant squirting, an angry hiss, and an elephant trumpeting.

11.\tThe apple morphs into a smiley face fades in and winks, then looks up and off to the side while whistling with an “innocent” look that says, “Mind you, I’ve said nothing.” (There’s a standard emoticon (on some sites) that captures this look beautifully.)

People will appreciate being amused by a witty, soft-sell ad like this, which will thereby predispose them toward looking Macs. I hope Apple will be willing to “think different,” ad-wise, and run this up the flagpole in a few test markets.

An enjoyable aspect of the ad to Apple Insiders would be its sly subliminal digs at MS through symbols like windows, vistas, walls, bugs, moats, migration, flag, etc.

PS: If Apple got started on this now, it would be ready in time for the Superbowl. It would have nearly the impact of the "1984" ad it ran two dozen years earlier.

Seinfeld makes off like a bandit! What business savy!

Daring Fireball's Gruber chimes in on how these ads actually reinforce Apple's 'Get A Mac' ads.

http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/digging_deeper

[QUOTE=Marvin;1311295]Pubic charity? You've been watching Dirty Sanchez I think.

opps - meant "public"!

This is a good point and my comment was narrow in scope. My belief is that all actions have consequences and I'm sure Bill Gates and M$ will have to square up one day, just like all of us. What I admire is that he is actually doing something with the money.

I have far too many glass walls to be throwing ANY rocks at other people!

Me too. Frankly, I don't care what MS or Gates has done in the past or will do in the future. If MS makes a product that suits my needs I will get it, if they don't I won't. I can't recall ever letting personal feelings control my consumering. For example, I do have an HP RAIDed Server running Windows Home Server and I like it.

OMG! Is that "Jerry Seinfeld" bass samples I hear in the commercial?

Well a mac is hardware and windows is software.

It would have to be "i'm OS 10.5" and "I'm windows vista"

not as punchy

A point of conformity you mean.There's a significant difference between that and dominance.Dominance is demanding,not something MS has ever had a hand in.MS is and has always been been a sham.The producers of half reasonable machines,Apple,are going to pull the shades on windows,god bless em for that.Another company will emerge to take power,thank god,and it won't be Apple.Apple is fundamentally weak too,look to the Internet to know what will become of these tyrannys in tyrannts clothing.Apple has played a great game but they missed the future for their company by underestimating the actual power of creation-it's alive and has found the alternative.
"Redesigning the world". Is coming soon...

lol... im sorry, but calling Bill unemployed is a joke. He's retired and still the richest man in the country (according to Forbes). I'm sorry I just had to pass that on...

I agree entirely, I was just pointing out that charitable deeds can have alternate motivations. The same applies to the FSF.


I think the wording could be tweaked a bit (maybe lose the last line) but that's pretty funny. Maybe the PC could say that the windows were so heavy, he couldn't carry them any more, where the emphasis on weight suggests Windows is bloated. The number of windows could relate to the number of versions of Windows there are.

Mac could ask how many windows he's carrying and PC replies 6 but he lost one on the way. Then he says it didn't matter as it was broken anyway. This relates to them calling the next Windows, Windows 7, conveniently missing out ME. (3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista = 7 total so Windows 7 is really Windows 8).

The lack of walls suggests that support for Windows is disappearing.

After the windows break, Mac could then find a local window repair shop on his iphone. I don't think they've made an ad with the iphone in it yet. Then the PC will show interest in the phone but then change his mind when he finds out it's a Mac too.

What were they thinking, they need fix Vista so it works with everyones hardware rather than just being money-grabbing and coming out with rubbish ads.

Unlike Apple who make an OS that will only work on their hardware and then plan to release a new version that limits it to Apple hardware with an intel chip making user have to upgrade to a new mac that contains the same bits as a pc but costs more.

Microsoft suck

Yep, I bet there are a few red faces.

Did you read the post a short while back by the guy blasting us for not liking the first ad and explaining in a condescending way how great this ad company was and it was a brilliant ad we were too dumb to understand? I bet he is getting a new handle lol.

Thank you, great read. I wanted to say all that but just couldn't find the words

Here's another 'Prisoned Princess ad for Apple's consideration:

1. A cartoon view from above of an isolated medieval tower, with moat and dragon. This time the window in the tower is much higher--20 feet up, say. The window is also very large and open (no glass or panes are visible).

2. The camera's view swoops in through the window into a dungeon-like room containing a sleeping princess. (Her hat and/or crown are shown hanging from a peg.)

3. A grouchy-looking chambermaid is seen trudging up a circular staircase and approaching the door of the room, carrying a thin rolled-up mattress (as it eventually is revealed to be).

4. She enters and wakes the princess, who gets up with a wincing facial expression and rubs herself in an attempt to soothe her stiffness and soreness. She points accusingly to the bed.

5. The chambermaid gives her a sour look and unrolls the mattress on top of the bed. It joins a half-dozen similar thin mattresses already there (these being indicated by layering lines and signs of overlapping).

6. The chambermaid removes a pea from beneath the pile of mattresses and gives the princess another sour or accusing look, then pockets the pea and exits the room.

7. The princess looks around forlornly and sits down at a small table, gazing longingly at the window and the scenery outside, seemingly hoping for release.

8. A small slot in the middle of the door slides open and a breakfast tray is roughly shoved through onto a supporting ledge attached to the door. (This is how some prisoners in solitary confinement are fed.) The tray bangs up against a one-inch-high vertical border on the ledge and an apple on the tray is jarred loose, rolling to the feet of the princess.

9. The princess picks it up and rubs it with the gauzy trailer from her cone-shaped hat.

10. A cloud of pixie dust appears and a genie emerges from the apple. He looks like a cross between the Mac Guy and Mr. Clean. His arms are folded, as if to say, "Your word is my command."

11. The princess points at the bed and makes a gesture of dissatisfaction, pantomiming her soreness.

12. The genie points a wand at it, or maybe just a finger, and pixie dust appears around the mattresses, transforming them into a magic carpet. This carpet then floats toward the princess and the genie. The bedframe in the background is revealed to be a bed of nails or spikes.

13. The princess gives the bed a shocked look, sits down on the magic carpet, and points to the window. The carpet carries her out the window, while the dragon futilely belches fire at her.

14. The carpet arrives at the same hobbit-style treehouse as in the first ad, and the same concluding sequence follows. (I.e., she bites into the apple, it transforms into the striped apple logo, the slogan "the grass IS greener" appears, the apple winks, etc.)

Take it away, Zanuck!

Oh yeah, red faces indeed:


If only you guys bothered to read something outside your comfort zone (i.e. mac-zealot publications) you'd notice the ads are being a smashing success and Crispin Porter + Bogusky is the talk of the town among people who actually know the least bit about marketing. Just sayin' ...

People round here don't form opinions from what other people tell us to think - they're our opinions. Telling us to change our perception because some blog somewhere says something different isn't really going to work - the majority of the reactions to these ads are negative. The very fact that people have to go to such lengths to justify the ads to people shows that it's a failure. People didn't feel the need to do this with Apple's ads.

What that site says doesn't make any sense.

"Had they tried to change the conversation they would have failed."

They did and yes it did fail. The Seinfeld stuff had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mac/PC thing.

"By embracing the conversation, even poking fun at it, Microsoft (via CPB) acknowledges the reality and perception that they are stuffy, unimaginative and a bit nerdy.

But then they trot out all these interesting and cool people and you have to not only re-evaluate your feelings about these people, but also about Microsoft. Either Eva Longoria, Vera Wang and Pharell Williams are uncool or you have to rethink this whole Mac v. PC thing."

Ok let's run down the people:

Fat guy complaining at the start (uncool)
A teacher who is not 'hip' (uncool)
Bill Gates who wears glasses (very uncool)
Some girl who also wears glasses (uncool)
Some girl probably part of Microsoft's 3rd world outreach who can't speak comprehensibly saying she wears glasses (glasses + poverty = uncool)
Some random jean-wearing guy (lazy = uncool)
A jeans designer (these are usually pretentious people) (uncool because they think they're cool)
A green building designer (uncool)
Someone who studies law (boooring = uncool)
practises law (uncool)
graffiti artist (maybe cool but usually just a pain in the ass)
blogger for Obama (politics) (uncool)
broadcast for McCain (politics) (uncool)
beard guy (waaay uncool)
diver (maybe cool but not really something people aspire too)
Eva Longoria (kinda cool but she has a gold-digger air about her so her appearance in any ad is really meaningless)
Turd farmer (uncool)
Environmentalist in a cold place (cool as in cold but not cool as in cool)
Teacher from the Microsoft outreach program (uncool)
An astronaut (NASA stuff is just boring these days = uncool)
Some guy called Roger (don't even care who geeky Roger is and Roger is an uncool name)
Some girl in a dress (doesn't matter, don't know who she is plus she does wedding dresses = fashion again = uncool)
Another outreach kid (uncool)
A rap guy (maybe cool but he looks a bit crap - nothing that's going to dent the uncoolness)
The monotone non-thinker, non-doer (is he even a real person? The fact he emphasizes being a human being makes me think he's really a robot. Soooo boring = uncool but at least Bill can teach him to dance badly)
The guy selling fish (Hmm tough one, I remember in school so many kids wanting to be fishmongers when they grew up. uncool again)

Irrespective of whether or not one or two people here might be cool, the vast majority are not. The ones who are slightly cool pale into insignificance. Having the mix simply paints the picture that PCs are for everyone be they cool or uncool but that's pointless advertising. The whole point about advertising is about making the customer feel special.

Why do you think marketing people use terms like limited edition? Microsoft even sell limited edition copies of Vista. It's to make consumers think they have something that sets them apart from the norm.

The way the people in the ad express themselves is also so unenthusiastic. It's almost like they're saying I'm a PC because Microsoft payed me lots of money to say I am but I really don't care and frankly a little embarrassed to be admitting it.

That site says that we either have to consider if these celebs are uncool or if Microsoft is uncool. Well you don't if you have any common sense in the same way that if Eva Longoria promotes some hair product, you don't immediately ask, hey if she says she uses the product, either that product is awesome given that her hair looks nice or she's a downright lier.

Most educated people simply understand that she's been paid to promote a product and has her hair done by professional stylists and filmed by professionals to make it looks as good as possible.

This has been pointed out before - the success of Apple's campaign is that it paints how things are in a slightly exaggerated version of the truth and this truth highlights known flaws with Windows PCs. This is how comedy works. The Microsoft ads don't do anything at all other than state the obvious that PCs are for anyone who happens to walk into a store whether you're a celeb or some random guy on the street. That does not make you want to go out and buy one.

Marketing people who say otherwise are just going after some self-promotion pretending to know the game better than anyone else and here's what these marketing people should do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

This happens in every profession. Some physicist comes up with a theory and scientists across the world try and explain why they've got it wrong just so people will think they're the smartest. Time will tell but I haven't seen any kind of shift in the public perception of what a PC is.

The microsoft commercials suck. i'm always glad to see Bill