On a slightly unrelated note, the year is ending and we have had a total of three different ad campaigns from the behemoth Microsoft. I have always heard that they do not listen to their ad agencies often and I feel that this shows that off very well. We started off with the ever-so-clever Seinfeld and Gates super duo. The ads weren't bad but what were they selling? That was never very apparent in the ads. I guess you can say that Microsoft does not need to actually sell anything in their ads, just keep their name in the spotlight, but why did they switch to the third ad I will talk about???
Second off they went to the "I'm a PC" campaign that was made on a Mac. Enough said... OK maybe not. This campaign shows that even a super-company like Microsoft is vulnerable. The PC market in Microsoft's bread and and butter because we as a society (me included) have not tried a Linux based platform. We have options. Apple is just getting better at being customer friendly while Microsoft is going the way of the giants and telling people what they should want. When this happens, David comes along and slays that giant. Happens all the time, look at the Big Three. They really are not so big anymore.
Third campaign and (up til now) is the "Mojave Experiment" campaign. OK Microsoft has finally started to realize that they put a product out there that does not seem to differentiate itself enough from its ancestor. The company believes it is different but the ever important consumer sees no difference. S here comes the "trial" of a "new" operating system. Microsoft then displays top-of-the-line computers with the best-of-the-best equipment on them to display the top Vista system and show everyone what can be done with it. Big problem here is how many people can afford an operating system at a price of over $300 and the computer that will efficiently run that power hog. Honestly I am sure that everything that Vista's Ultimate package does is great but most computers will come loaded with the basic Home version. Mine did and guess what... There is NOTHING mind blowing about Vista.
I am not trying to complain or pretend that I am a techie. For the average person, Vista is not an improvement over XP and really it takes a little time to get used to. The problem most people are running into is that the cost of learning the new features and the extreme usage of memory do not outweigh the benefits that the basic Vista user receives. That makes for a poor value and the reason consumers are so turned off by Vista.
Sorry, I guess I may have gone over board on that one but business is that simple. On a very related note I do enjoy the ease of use that the new Office suite provides. It as well took some getting used to but I do actually enjoy the setup of it all. I guess Microsoft can still do some things right. Too bad they cannot stick with one coherent ad campaign for more than a couple of months!
1 comment:
I think the biggest difference up until now between Apple and MS was that Apple sold a "lifestyle", and MS sold their image. In recent years, probably due to the success of the ipod, Apple began to make up some ground, due to the fact that their viewed as the big alternative to the man (MS). Now, with their "I'm a PC" campaign, it seems like their trying to adopt some of Apple's philosophy in pushing a lifestyle over anything of substance. Not that Apple doesn't have any substance, because their products are good, it's just that they seem to promote the way they look more than they function.
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