‘Windows without walls’ campaign breaking traditional ad boundaries
By John Lister
The post-Seinfeld phase of the Microsoft advertising campaign has taken a step up. As well as traditional print and broadcast ads, the firm is using more creative techniques both on and off-line.
The battle to reclaim ‘I’m a PC’ as a positive is taking a new step with Microsoft asking fans to upload pictures and videos of themselves apeing the new ad campaign. To make sure they attract more than just the truly fanatical PC lovers as the firm has promised to display the best clips in online banners and on video billboards in Times Square.
Presumably Linux devotees are already running a betting pool on who’ll be the first person to get a clip broadcast claiming “I’m a PC and my name is Ubuntu”, or simply wearing a red hat.
Meanwhile anyone e-mailing Sean Siler – the Microsoft employee who appears at the start of the ads as a lookalike of the uncool character from the Apple ads – now gets an auto-response beginning “Hello! I’m a PC – and I can’t answer your email right now. I’d like to say that I’m out climbing Mt. Rainier or biking across Europe with the Swedish Beach Volleyball Team, but in fact I’m probably just chained to a desk somewhere in the depths of Redmond pounding out product specifications.” (As one wag as already pointed out, most viewers would prefer the ads carried Eva Longoria’s e-mail address.)
Microsoft has also published some of the press ads it will be running, including one where a man has cut a Windows logo-shaped hole in his wall, with the accompanying text including the rather grandiose claim that “This is more than software we’re talking about. It’s an approach to life. An approach dedicated to engineering the absence of anything that might stand in the way… of life.”
The Seinfeld-Gates partnership didn’t appear to be from a company concerned about creating a cool, trendy image, but that does seem to be the focus of many of the new ads. It certainly seems worth trying to counter the stereotypes portrayed in Apple’s ad campaigns, but turning Windows users into pro-PC advocates with the passion of Mac-lovers still seems something of a long-shot.
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September 19th, 2008
‘Windows without walls’ ?
Maybe it should say
“A world without windows”
September 19th, 2008
Quote: “This is more than software we’re talking about. It’s an approach to life. An approach dedicated to engineering the absence of anything that might stand in the way… of life.”
That’s not only a lot funnier than Jerry Seinfeld, it’s the funniest thing I’ve read in quite a while.
A more appropriate line would have been: “This is more than an abuse of our monopoly we’re talking about. Its an approach to racketeering. An approach dedicated to engineering the absence of anything that might stand in the way… of Microsoft profit margins.
September 21st, 2008
‘In a world without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows?
September 21st, 2008
‘In a world without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows?’