Microsoft: Evil? Perhaps. Good at PR? No.
Guest writer Matthew Hasteley talks us through the differences between Microsoft and Apple’s marketing strategies.
It’s five years since Microsoft released Windows Vista, its $6 billion replacement for its ubiquitous XP operating system. The various Windows OSs make up almost 90% of the market, yet the monopolist is seemingly obsessed by its tiny (in computer operating system terms) rival, Apple. Microsoft’s new operating system borrows wholesale from the iPod maker’s OS X, which it ships exclusively with its expensive, lovingly designed computers – copying Apple’s ‘dock’, and crucially, it’s slick responsiveness. Windows 7 isn’t significantly faster than Vista, but it feels much more so because there’s no stuttering unresponsivenes, as the OS shunts all its resources over to open a program or save a document. In 7, as in OS X, the mouse still moves, the keyboard still responds. The computer doesn’t stop to do its thing, ignoring its human operator any more.
It’s bizarre then, that Microsoft’s marketing department has (still), failed to learn anything from of its smaller foe. Apple do ‘cool’ well. The iPod and the iPhone aren’t far from having the best hardware out there, but they’re beautiful looking and have cleverly designed, easy-to-use interfaces. They are also pitched directly at 18-30something hipsters: in the knowledge that if this demographic go for it, everyone will – teenagers, grannies, and crucially, the media elite.
Microsoft’s marketing department seem to take this as a deliberate snub (perhaps thanks to the Apple computer division’s long running “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” campaign, ridiculing the PC’s everyman approach) and have spent millions on a series of increasingly oddball campaigns, aimed not so much at their customers, as at Apple’s marketing department.
The “I’m a PC” campaign began with then CEO Bill Gates’s cringe-worthy appearance in a multi-part sitcom/advert hybrid alongside US comedy star Jerry Seinfield. Next came a series of adverts where celebrities (including bull-shit merchant Deepak Chopra and actress Eva Longoria among other notables) would proclaim “I’m a PC” (presumably because of the fat cheques in their pockets) to camera.
And thus, in attempting to appeal to everyone, (and get back at those smug bastards at Apple), Microsoft manage to spend untold millions on appealing to precisely no one – and devoiding their brand of any personality.
The latest coup de grace in this campaign is last week’s campaign to get everyone to hold Windows 7 parties. The notion itself sounds embarrassing in itself – apply to Microsoft for a free (signed!) copy of the new operating system, along with streamers, balloons, party bags, playing cards, a puzzle, and a poster; on the promise that you will invite friends over to show them how the new operating system works. It’s an old enough dodge – try to get your customers to evangelize for your product, word of mouth being much more potent than any other form of advertising. But it requires a deft touch, which Microsoft are not exactly renowned for having.
And it gets much, much worse. To accompany the ‘offer’, there is an official Microsoft instructional video which goes way beyond the bounds of credulity. Four desperately unlucky actors stand around in a plywood kitchen awkwardly talking you through the steps for your corporate-sponsored funfest. The whole piece would lurch uncomfortably close to an Orwellian nightmare if it weren’t for the jaw-dropping embarrassment on display – even the actors themselves seem confused as they swap their focus from camera to their fellow awkwardees. For a moment you think you must be watching a scene from The Office.
You have to watch it for yourself (at the hil-arious Guardian tech blog).
Thus are empires brought low.
The full jaw-dropping horror of the instructional video can be found here.
I wonder why ratings and comments have been disabled?
Of course, awkward Microsoft adverts are nothing new.
The difference between the two techniques seems to be that Apple want you to feel as if you’re better than everyone else, whereas Microsoft wants you to feel the same as everyone else. Apple’s basically been following that strategy ever since the Ridley Scott-directed 1984 advert — Apple products make you stand out from the crowd, they make you unique and special. All I can surmise from the recent slew of awful Microsoft adverts is that they want their customers to feel cheap and uncool and part of a crowd.
Bonus points for spotting Buffy/Angel star Charisma Carpenter in one of those ads by the way.
The inevitable mock response vid.
Microsoft are at that embarrassing parent stage, kind of like Davina McCall.