...I do know people under 50 who have a knowledge of cinema and easily get cinematic references. The audience for this particular spot was the audience for the movie. So the market for this thing was each and every person who saw the spot where MS displayed it.
None of this is particularly complicated.
And again we agree. I'm in my late 60s and I haven't seen the movie (I'm not a film buff). Therefore I'm not blasting the "WTF" aspect of the ad, knowing full well that it was targeted at a group of folks who would indeed understand (and perhaps appreciate) the connections between LoA and the WinFone.
I think it's pretty ignorant of posters who haven't seen the movie to pop off with "I don't understand"-type comments.
It's an advertisement for gosh sakes. It wasn't meant for many of us on the comments forum.
Well that is a minute I will never get back. The caption should be, "The Revolution came and trampled us over the last 3 tears, now we a finally ready to do something, but it will be rather pathetic and sad."
Now here's something that Newtron and I can totally agree on. Your list of alternatives is great!
I too dislike the use of "magical" to describe the gadgets we use in our daily lives.
That's because most of them most assuredly are not. Terms like "maddening", "user-hostile", "slapped-together" and "a complete and utter waste of money" spring to mind.
However, given Apple's tight coupling of a highly responsive multitouch UI to very specific hardware, in order to sell the idea that you are directly manipulating your files as if they were real world objects, I'm not sure that "magical" is completely fatuous (it is, of course, at least mildly fatuous).
Apple isn't just throwing "magical" around to denote whatever random bit of consumer kit they happened to shovel out the door. They're talking about that particular experience, which after all is very new to the computing landscape. I dare say some not insignificant number of people experiencing the iPod for the first time might well find it "magical."
Eh, it's kind of a cute ad, better than the Droid ads (Do we really want to become cyborgs?) but I hope they didn't spend much on it.
I can't imagine is was all that expensive and given that MS/WinPhone is partnering with Secret Cinema I would expect more themed film ads like that for each event.
And I'd think that more folks in the UK has seen LoA than in the US (percentage wise) so I dunno that we should apply US sensibilities (or the lack thereof) to the ad.
As far as the teen demographics go if they launch with some XBox ports on their app store with Live support that should do the male gamer demographic. This series of ads seem to be targeting cinema lovers which isn't a bad one to address for a multimedia smart phone.
Actually, at this point, I have no idea what MS' idea about advertising is. They seem to have been careening around wildly with tone and focus, so I'm not sure they know either.
That exemplifies their software as well. I recently had to work on a client's Server 2008. What a mess that thing is. Every setting is in a completely different part of the management console and each preference has a totally different visual layout. It is clear that different teams build the bits and parts with no unifying style.
That is how their ad campaigns usually turn out as well. All different approaches, different styles but void of any unifying brand identity. The most pathetic though is when they try to copy Apple. That always flops.
I think I would recommend that they target strictly enterprise and business users and forget the consumers. If the phone is any good it will migrate to the general public much like Blackberry did. BB started out as business only and eventually went mainstream. At least MS has some credibility in the business space.
So long as the commercials look really slick, the product must also be slick. I would be the last human on the planet to run windows on a phone ... so Microsoft ... you need to sell over 6 billion phones to get to me. Good luck.
I dunno, it kinda obviates your point about the ad being well contextualized at the screening? In other words, so what if everybody got it at the theater, they're massively in the minority.
Well that it's an ad shown at the screening of LoA in London is plastered over the YouTube version so it's still in context unless you can't or wont read what you're watching...
Quote:
going over the heads of people over 18 does not equal going over the heads of, for all practical purposes, everyone who is going to see your ad-- the folks in the theater representing the merest drop in the bucket.
I would guess that 90%+ of the folks viewing this ad on you tube got to it via some tech site telling folks this was the WP7 ad shown before LoA...
Looks like Secret Cinema has done Blade Runner...with the winphone acting as replicant eye scanner...(around 2:30)
Well that it's an ad shown at the screening of LoA in London is plastered over the YouTube version so it's still in context unless you can't or wont read what you're watching...
I would guess that 90%+ of the folks viewing this ad on you tube got to it via some tech site telling folks this was the WP7 ad shown before LoA...
Looks like Secret Cinema has done Blade Runner...with the winphone acting as replicant eye scanner...(around 2:30)
damn! these do look like fun. at least i can thank ms for letting me know about the secret cinema (although i feel like a complete numbskull for not knowing about them sooner!)
I have a feeling the word "revolution" is being overused here. And that teaser is about 30 seconds too long. Even though I like my iPhone, I'm really curious to see what a Windows 7 phone is capable of.
I can't believe I'm on a APPLE forum and everyone is pretending that this Microsux P.O.S. is going to be anything but another ZUNE, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 failure! Where are all the Macintosh people? We've got nothing here by MS fanboys!
Ok, I'll say it. It's appropriate that Microsux picked a mirage for their commercial since that's what their success will be like with this cell phone!
OK, MS fanboys, let 'er rip!
Because it's the paid shills jumping in. A truly pathetic company.
How do you figure that Microsoft is not competing with the iPhone?
Heh. There's a lot of video games mentality in this forum. MS vs Android. MS vs. iPhone. MS vs...
I don't think MS is competing against anyone in particular. They want their product to be successful (and make them heaps of money in the process. They don't really care who loses market share as long as they get it.
Think of the Win7 phone in terms of the $500 Million that MS will spend on the launch. It will generate hundresds of jobs or save a few hundred jobs. Hopefully it will raise the stock price, and create some competition for Apple and Google. All of these are good things.
For Apple it is better to loose market share to MS and Google rather than Google alone since fragmentaion is easier to target. Dissatisfied MS customers (and they will be dissatisfied - no question about that) are more likely to go to Apple than to Google (just my opinion - no scientific basis for it) and in the end that benefits Apple. Meanwhile Apple is under pressure to introduce some of the features that have been around in Android and Windoze for a long time which benefits us - the consumer.
I think a Win7 phone is a great idea all around - too bad it won't be around for too long.
And then the commercial will live on on the internet without context, provoking furrowed brows.
Producing an ad specifically for a single showing of a single film may be MS' idea of viral marketing and creating buzz, but MS is actually pretty famous for pursuing some pretty eccentric and largely feckless marketing ideas.
And before anyone deploys the tired "Hey, we're talking about it it must be working", tech discussion sites have almost literally nothing to do with the markets MS needs to be reaching to get the kind of mass success they must surely feel they need.
Personally, I find mysterioso teaser campaigns to be tiresome, and it sets you up for a letdown after you've been wandering around implying Everyone's Life Will Change on the Big Day. I much prefer Apple's penchant for building a device, keeping their cards close to their vest until that device is ready to ship, then running ads that emphasize what it can do and how it works.
Furrowed brows are not necessarily bad thing.
I recall well commercial with robot/android in low sprinter-start position, with text "Clio has arrived" appearing on the screen at the end of the commercial. There was no other explanation and I do recall asking myself WTF is that? Turned out to be the commercial for the first gen Renault Clio. That was probably 15 years ago if not more... and I still remember it. How many "Toyota - Ordinary People" from the past few years do I remember? Hardly any. Likewise other more informative/obvious car ads.
I think that adds like this one, even if people don't connect with it's movie inspiration, will generate some interest to actually look around.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. I haven't checked out a Windows 7 Phone personally, so I'm just reserving my judgement until I get my hands on one. It might work well for the corporate crowd, but Microsoft will have to compete with RIM in that department, not Google or Apple.
That being said, launching any smartphone in this day and age without a Copy & Paste function or multitasking seems more de-evolutionary than "revolutionary."
I recall well commercial with robot/android in low sprinter-start position, with text "Clio has arrived" appearing on the screen at the end of the commercial. There was no other explanation and I do recall asking myself WTF is that? Turned out to be the commercial for the first gen Renault Clio. That was probably 15 years ago if not more... and I still remember it. How many "Toyota - Ordinary People" from the past few years do I remember? Hardly any. Likewise other more informative/obvious car ads.
I think that adds like this one, even if people don't connect with it's movie inspiration, will generate some interest to actually look around.
However, and as I've said, if you don't get the LOA reference you're left with "Arabic", which, given the political passions of the day, seems like a kind of risky choice.
I can't believe I'm on a APPLE forum and everyone is pretending that this Microsux P.O.S. is going to be anything but another ZUNE, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 failure!
Because it's the paid shills jumping in. A truly pathetic company.
A lot of people are on this Apple forum simply because they value quality products, not because they worship a brand name.
I like new and interesting devices, regardless of who makes them, and the fact is that WP7 is a new and interesting device.
If you can't broaden your point of view beyond "it comes from Microsoft, therefore it must be shit" then you're really going to struggle to relate to people in any WP7 thread on AI.
It's probably best if you just avoid them altogether.
Comments
...I do know people under 50 who have a knowledge of cinema and easily get cinematic references. The audience for this particular spot was the audience for the movie. So the market for this thing was each and every person who saw the spot where MS displayed it.
None of this is particularly complicated.
And again we agree. I'm in my late 60s and I haven't seen the movie (I'm not a film buff). Therefore I'm not blasting the "WTF" aspect of the ad, knowing full well that it was targeted at a group of folks who would indeed understand (and perhaps appreciate) the connections between LoA and the WinFone.
I think it's pretty ignorant of posters who haven't seen the movie to pop off with "I don't understand"-type comments.
It's an advertisement for gosh sakes. It wasn't meant for many of us on the comments forum.
Now here's something that Newtron and I can totally agree on. Your list of alternatives is great!
I too dislike the use of "magical" to describe the gadgets we use in our daily lives.
That's because most of them most assuredly are not. Terms like "maddening", "user-hostile", "slapped-together" and "a complete and utter waste of money" spring to mind.
However, given Apple's tight coupling of a highly responsive multitouch UI to very specific hardware, in order to sell the idea that you are directly manipulating your files as if they were real world objects, I'm not sure that "magical" is completely fatuous (it is, of course, at least mildly fatuous).
Apple isn't just throwing "magical" around to denote whatever random bit of consumer kit they happened to shovel out the door. They're talking about that particular experience, which after all is very new to the computing landscape. I dare say some not insignificant number of people experiencing the iPod for the first time might well find it "magical."
Eh, it's kind of a cute ad, better than the Droid ads (Do we really want to become cyborgs?) but I hope they didn't spend much on it.
I can't imagine is was all that expensive and given that MS/WinPhone is partnering with Secret Cinema I would expect more themed film ads like that for each event.
And I'd think that more folks in the UK has seen LoA than in the US (percentage wise) so I dunno that we should apply US sensibilities (or the lack thereof) to the ad.
As far as the teen demographics go if they launch with some XBox ports on their app store with Live support that should do the male gamer demographic. This series of ads seem to be targeting cinema lovers which isn't a bad one to address for a multimedia smart phone.
Actually, at this point, I have no idea what MS' idea about advertising is. They seem to have been careening around wildly with tone and focus, so I'm not sure they know either.
That exemplifies their software as well. I recently had to work on a client's Server 2008. What a mess that thing is. Every setting is in a completely different part of the management console and each preference has a totally different visual layout. It is clear that different teams build the bits and parts with no unifying style.
That is how their ad campaigns usually turn out as well. All different approaches, different styles but void of any unifying brand identity. The most pathetic though is when they try to copy Apple. That always flops.
I think I would recommend that they target strictly enterprise and business users and forget the consumers. If the phone is any good it will migrate to the general public much like Blackberry did. BB started out as business only and eventually went mainstream. At least MS has some credibility in the business space.
I dunno, it kinda obviates your point about the ad being well contextualized at the screening? In other words, so what if everybody got it at the theater, they're massively in the minority.
Well that it's an ad shown at the screening of LoA in London is plastered over the YouTube version so it's still in context unless you can't or wont read what you're watching...
going over the heads of people over 18 does not equal going over the heads of, for all practical purposes, everyone who is going to see your ad-- the folks in the theater representing the merest drop in the bucket.
I would guess that 90%+ of the folks viewing this ad on you tube got to it via some tech site telling folks this was the WP7 ad shown before LoA...
Looks like Secret Cinema has done Blade Runner...with the winphone acting as replicant eye scanner...(around 2:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqNTz...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERdUe...eature=related
Okay...they're spending an asston of money on these Secret Cinema events and I'm jealous. That looked like fun.
here's a SciFi/Anime related WP7/Secret Cinema trailer. A bit lamer than the LoA trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzscT...eature=related
Looks like in 2008 Nokia was the sponsor...guess someone got outbid by MS in 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hemhy...eature=related
Aliens 2009 - Nostromo powered by Windows Phone (00:59)...I guess now we really know why it exploded...not a self destruct command but a BSOD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3-5q...eature=related
Assuming $100M of similar derivative hype per month, should we assume it'll vanish forever five months after it appears?
Well that it's an ad shown at the screening of LoA in London is plastered over the YouTube version so it's still in context unless you can't or wont read what you're watching...
I would guess that 90%+ of the folks viewing this ad on you tube got to it via some tech site telling folks this was the WP7 ad shown before LoA...
Looks like Secret Cinema has done Blade Runner...with the winphone acting as replicant eye scanner...(around 2:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqNTz...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERdUe...eature=related
Okay...they're spending an asston of money on these Secret Cinema events and I'm jealous. That looked like fun.
here's a SciFi/Anime related WP7/Secret Cinema trailer. A bit lamer than the LoA trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzscT...eature=related
Looks like in 2008 Nokia was the sponsor...guess someone got outbid by MS in 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hemhy...eature=related
Aliens 2009 - Nostromo powered by Windows Phone (00:59)...I guess now we really know why it exploded...not a self destruct command but a BSOD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3-5q...eature=related
damn! these do look like fun. at least i can thank ms for letting me know about the secret cinema (although i feel like a complete numbskull for not knowing about them sooner!)
I have a feeling the word "revolution" is being overused here. And that teaser is about 30 seconds too long. Even though I like my iPhone, I'm really curious to see what a Windows 7 phone is capable of.
Why??????? Its more MSFT crap.
I can't believe I'm on a APPLE forum and everyone is pretending that this Microsux P.O.S. is going to be anything but another ZUNE, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 failure! Where are all the Macintosh people? We've got nothing here by MS fanboys!
Ok, I'll say it. It's appropriate that Microsux picked a mirage for their commercial since that's what their success will be like with this cell phone!
OK, MS fanboys, let 'er rip!
Because it's the paid shills jumping in. A truly pathetic company.
How do you figure that Microsoft is not competing with the iPhone?
Because consumers that like the iPhone are much smarter than those that would even consider this POS.
How do you figure that Microsoft is not competing with the iPhone?
Heh. There's a lot of video games mentality in this forum. MS vs Android. MS vs. iPhone. MS vs...
I don't think MS is competing against anyone in particular. They want their product to be successful (and make them heaps of money in the process. They don't really care who loses market share as long as they get it.
I am willing to bet that a rather large percentage of the people who post here have never seen the movie.
Seen? Try "heard of" instead
Think of the Win7 phone in terms of the $500 Million that MS will spend on the launch. It will generate hundresds of jobs or save a few hundred jobs. Hopefully it will raise the stock price, and create some competition for Apple and Google. All of these are good things.
For Apple it is better to loose market share to MS and Google rather than Google alone since fragmentaion is easier to target. Dissatisfied MS customers (and they will be dissatisfied - no question about that) are more likely to go to Apple than to Google (just my opinion - no scientific basis for it) and in the end that benefits Apple. Meanwhile Apple is under pressure to introduce some of the features that have been around in Android and Windoze for a long time which benefits us - the consumer.
I think a Win7 phone is a great idea all around - too bad it won't be around for too long.
True.
It will be replaced with Windows Phone 8...
I foresee great fail in this new WP7 from Microfail
Wow, you managed to put word "fail" twice in single sentence, but on of them is hidden in pseudo-name. Smart
And then the commercial will live on on the internet without context, provoking furrowed brows.
Producing an ad specifically for a single showing of a single film may be MS' idea of viral marketing and creating buzz, but MS is actually pretty famous for pursuing some pretty eccentric and largely feckless marketing ideas.
And before anyone deploys the tired "Hey, we're talking about it it must be working", tech discussion sites have almost literally nothing to do with the markets MS needs to be reaching to get the kind of mass success they must surely feel they need.
Personally, I find mysterioso teaser campaigns to be tiresome, and it sets you up for a letdown after you've been wandering around implying Everyone's Life Will Change on the Big Day. I much prefer Apple's penchant for building a device, keeping their cards close to their vest until that device is ready to ship, then running ads that emphasize what it can do and how it works.
Furrowed brows are not necessarily bad thing.
I recall well commercial with robot/android in low sprinter-start position, with text "Clio has arrived" appearing on the screen at the end of the commercial. There was no other explanation and I do recall asking myself WTF is that? Turned out to be the commercial for the first gen Renault Clio. That was probably 15 years ago if not more... and I still remember it. How many "Toyota - Ordinary People" from the past few years do I remember? Hardly any. Likewise other more informative/obvious car ads.
I think that adds like this one, even if people don't connect with it's movie inspiration, will generate some interest to actually look around.
Why??????? Its more MSFT crap.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. I haven't checked out a Windows 7 Phone personally, so I'm just reserving my judgement until I get my hands on one. It might work well for the corporate crowd, but Microsoft will have to compete with RIM in that department, not Google or Apple.
That being said, launching any smartphone in this day and age without a Copy & Paste function or multitasking seems more de-evolutionary than "revolutionary."
Furrowed brows are not necessarily bad thing.
I recall well commercial with robot/android in low sprinter-start position, with text "Clio has arrived" appearing on the screen at the end of the commercial. There was no other explanation and I do recall asking myself WTF is that? Turned out to be the commercial for the first gen Renault Clio. That was probably 15 years ago if not more... and I still remember it. How many "Toyota - Ordinary People" from the past few years do I remember? Hardly any. Likewise other more informative/obvious car ads.
I think that adds like this one, even if people don't connect with it's movie inspiration, will generate some interest to actually look around.
However, and as I've said, if you don't get the LOA reference you're left with "Arabic", which, given the political passions of the day, seems like a kind of risky choice.
I can't believe I'm on a APPLE forum and everyone is pretending that this Microsux P.O.S. is going to be anything but another ZUNE, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 failure!
Because it's the paid shills jumping in. A truly pathetic company.
A lot of people are on this Apple forum simply because they value quality products, not because they worship a brand name.
I like new and interesting devices, regardless of who makes them, and the fact is that WP7 is a new and interesting device.
If you can't broaden your point of view beyond "it comes from Microsoft, therefore it must be shit" then you're really going to struggle to relate to people in any WP7 thread on AI.
It's probably best if you just avoid them altogether.