Microsoft’s recent ads targeted at consumers are confusing at best, misleading at worst. The whole Seinfeld/Gates thing was just weird. But for a flicker of a second, I liked Microsoft for just letting down its guard and being weird. This whole I’m a PC thing was borderline creepy at times. But this latest round of “PC Hunter” ads takes the cake.
And by “takes the cake” I mean, “I love these fools!” Seriously. They built an entire ad campaign that tells their existing and potential customers that they are not cool enough for a Mac. I agree. Not because I am a snobby Apple geek (because I am, and have been through thick and thin, for over 15 years). But because if you are willing to buy into this bullshit and purchase a computer solely on the basis that it’s cheap, then you deserve the piece of crap that you just paid less for. Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.
There are 2 aspects to Microsoft’s position in these ads that I don’t get. First, they never mention their OS. They don’t promote a single feature of Vista as being worth the silicon it runs on. In fact, so little mention is made, that it’s as if these “laptop hunters” will only discover once they get home and bust open their shiny new laptop that it indeed runs Vista.
Second, they not only seem to accept that Apple is cooler, they actually promote it. At one point, the subject sighs, “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.” While I’m sure it was meant to be sarcastic, it is not convincingly so. It could easily be misinterpreted as, “I would love to buy a Mac, but I guess I’m stuck with this piece of shit HP.”
Keep up the good work, Redmond!
