Microsoft’s “Super” Ad

[pullquote]Making fun of Microsoft Ads is like hunting dairy cows with a high-powered rifle and scope[/pullquote]

Microsoft and Apple have been competing against one another in computing for some thirty odd years. Both companies have evolved over the years but, in many ways, their personalities remain the same. Nowhere is this better reflected than in their advertising. Apple is the cool kid, as portrayed in Apple’s famous Mac vs PC Ads. Microsoft is the successful Geek who has everything — except Apple’s status as the cool kid…and Apple’s ability to create a successful Ad campaign.

Five Types Of Microsoft Ads

Advertising is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a wreck.

Microsoft seems to have five types of Ads: Bizarre, Misguided, Envious, Defensive and Mean.

BIZARRE

[pullquote]Time spent in Microsoft’s advertising division seems to create a permanent deformity like the Chinese habit of foot-binding.[/pullquote]

I really don’t need to prove that Microsoft’s Ads are bizarre. They speak for themselves:

  1. 10 Bizarre Microsoft Ads That Will Hurt Your Brain

MISGUIDED

  1. Microsoft get it done day

While Apple’s Ads tend to focus on fun stuff, like music and movies, Microsoft’s Ads focus on spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations. Microsoft thinks that the fact that their computers do work is an advantage. But I think they’re wrong on two counts.

First, the message Microsoft wants to send is that their computers DO work. But the message they actually seem to be conveying is that their computers ARE work.

Second, everyone knows that Apple’s computers can be used for fun. Only Microsoft thinks that means that they can’t be used for work too.

ENVIOUS

[pullquote]One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it. ~ Elizabeth Bowen[/pullquote]

When the Surface first came out, Microsoft tried to sell it with Apple-like dancers and clickable covers. But instead of looking “cool”, their ads just came across as pointless.

You can’t teach cool and the harder Microsoft tries to be like Apple, the clearer it is that they’re nothing at all like Apple.

DEFENSIVE

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[pullquote]Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ~ Steve Ostten[/pullquote]

Does the above Ad ring true to you — or to anyone outside of Redmond? Apple and Android tablets have been a sales success. Windows 8 tablets have been a sales disaster. Yet we’re supposed to believe that the guy in the Ad couldn’t find a single reason not to buy a non-Microsoft device? Really?

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It’s like Microsoft is begging us to believe them; to take them at their word. The louder they shout, the more we tune them out.

Tasteless

[pullquote]The only problem with Microsoft is that they have no taste. ~ Steve Jobs[/pullquote]

  1. Microsoft removes cringe-worthy videos, says they were intended to be ‘light-hearted poke’ at Apple

Microsoft is like the tone deaf man who insists on singing at the top of his lungs at all the wrong times and in all the wrong venues. Their ads are not just odd, they make you cringe.

Mean

[pullquote]Good bad taste is always fueled by rage and anger with humor thrown in. Bad bad taste is fueled by stupidity and ignorance, and it comes out as anger. ~ John Waters[/pullquote]

Microsoft’s Scroogled campaign is just plain mean. It was bad enough when they were just running ads but then someone at Microsoft thought it was a good idea to open a Scroogled Store – where Microsoft would sell you shirts and mugs that mock Google.

Scroogled just dumps on Google with nothing positive. ~ Steve Wildstrom (@swildstrom)

Apple’s Ads Get It

Nike sells a commodity, they sell shoes. And yet when you think of Nike you feel something different than a shoe company. In their ads, as you know, they don’t ever talk about the product, they don’t ever talk about their air soles, how they’re better than Reebok’s air soles. What’s Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are. That is what they are about. ~ Steve Jobs, during a town hall meeting with employees before unveiling the “Think Different” campaign in 1997.

[pullquote]This 30yr anniversary commercial is so right… ~ Jean-Louis Gassée (@gassee)[/pullquote]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zJahlKPCL9g

Microsoft’s Super Bowl Ad

The follow Ad was shown by Microsoft during the Super Bowl.

[pullquote]A welcome change of pace from Scroogled, to say the least. ~ Ben Thompson (@monkbent)[/pullquote]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qaOvHKG0Tio

The Microsoft Ad finished at the top of the Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review. It celebrated the power of technology. It was emotional. It was personal. It was everything that advertising should be.

[pullquote]A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. ~ John C. Maxwell[/pullquote]

Now, one commercial does not a pattern make, but perhaps this is a sign that Microsoft is finally getting it. As counter-intuitive as may seem, technology is meant to be loved, not to be understood.

A Tale of Two Ads: “Misunderstood” vs. “Scroogled”

Screen shot from commercial (Apple via YouTube) If you want to know why Apple keeps winning  in consumer markets and Microsoft keeps losing, you can find much of the answer in the ads the two companies use to present themselves to the world. This week, Apple channeled Frank Capra and Vincente Minelli into an iPhone ad in the form of a perfect 90-second nano-feature film. Microsoft, meanwhile, spends its ad dollars to trash the competition and come across as combining the worst features of Mr. Potter and the Grinch. I have worked with both companies for many years and can assure you that while they are very different from each other, both are fiercely competitive, touchy, and as huggable as  hedgehogs. But there can be big difference between what you are and the persona you choose to present to the world.

The iPhone ad (left), titled “Misunderstood,” blows away the memory of the rather odd ads Apple has run lately. In it, a sullen boy or 13 or so seems totally absorbed by his iPhone during the family Christmas celebration. But the kid has really been making a video documenting the family that, when shown via Apple TV, reduces his mother and grandmother to tears. Yes, it sounds sappy as can be but set against a soulful version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas ((The only real fault I can find in the ad is a terrible jump cut in mid-song. I have been unable to identify the performer, but she’s wonderful.)) ,” it packs a powerful emotional punch.

Microsoft’s 90-second anti-Chromebook ad (left), part of a recent extended attack on all things Google, is the complete opposite. A young woman walks into a pawn shop hoping to trade her “laptop” for enough money to buy a ticket to Hollywood. The man behind the counter laughs at her and tells her that because it is a Chromebook and not a real laptop, “it’s pretty much a brick.” “See this thingy,” the man says, pointing to the Chrome logo. “That means it’s not a real laptop. It doesn’t have Windows or Office.” After some of Microsoft’s by-now familiar attacks on Google tracking, pawn shop guy says, “I’m not going to buy this one. I don’t want to get Scroogled.” I’m going to leave aside the ad’s numerous misrepresentations and outright falsehoods (apparently news of standalone Chrome apps has not yet made it to Redmond) and focus on its tone. It is, in a word, nasty. Apple’s ad leaves you with the warm fuzzies, Microsoft’s leaves you wanting a shower. I don’t think it  is a coincidence that this bullying tone of advertising and the general attack on Google were born after Microsoft brought Mark Penn aboard as executive vice president for advertising and strategy. Penn, a longtime Democratic operative and a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign knows negative advertising inside and out. There are two things well known about negative political ads. One is that voters absolutely hate them. The other is that they work. But selling a consumer product is very different from selling a candidate. U.S. elections, even primaries by the time they get serious, are zero-sum, binary affairs. If you can convince voters that the other guy is a bum, your guy will benefit. Microsoft’s problem, though, is that consumers don’t seem to want to buy its products. I cannot see how telling them that Chromebooks are bad and Google is evil makes them want to run out and buy Windows 8 or a Surface 2.  Considering how thuggish that ad makes Microsoft look, they are probably just as likely to head for the nearest Apple Store. (One very odd criticism of the Chromebook in the Microsoft commercial is that it doesn’t run iTunes.) ((You could argue that the Mac vs. PC ads of a few years ago were Apple’s own foray into negative advertising,  but there were two critical differences. One is that the ads were done with a light and humorous touch. The second is that they favorably compared Macs to Windows rather than simply trashing the competition.)) Microsoft desperately needs people to want Microsoft products (other than Xboxes.) This is not a problem that marketing can solve–better products have to come first–but ads that drip aggression and hostility are only going to make things worse.