Can Microsoft ever do anything right? The company has some produced some pretty good advertising for Windows 7, but for some inexplicable reason, the ads will not be shown on TV. Microsoft’s best advertising in years is restricted to a dusty corner of YouTube, where no one will see them.
After making everyone squirm with Jerry Seinfield and Bill Gates, and then reducing Windows 7 to rainbows and unicorns, the software giant has produced five new ads that are right out of Apple’s playbook.
The best is the one below, Personalization: Your PC, Your Style. The ad shows a young woman in the park customizing her laptop. As she makes changes on the machine, the environment around her also changes. It’s a clever way to demo features of the system, and it’s a lifestyle ad. It actually makes Windows 7 look cool.
The rest of the ads are posted below. They’re worth watching because they show Microsoft can sometimes get it right. The ads aren’t great, mind you. Nothing to rival Apple’s iconic “Think Different” or “1984.” But for a company with a famously wooded ear, they’re a big step in the right direction.
The ads were shot guerrilla style by director Marty Martin using a Canon 5D Mark II SLR on a three-day deadline, according to Ars Technica. But oddly, they will not air on TV, a Microsoft spokesman told Seattle PI’s Microsoft Blog. The ads have been posted to the Windows YouTube channel, but have been watched only a few thousand views, despite a lot of positive press from blogs.
The campaign would be a good complement to Microsoft’s meat-and-potatoes Laptop Hunters ads, which compare the pricing of Windows PCs to Apple’s offerings. The new ads challenge Apple on its home turf: making tech look cool through sophisticated lifestyle marketing. Apple has long used advertising as a key strategic tool. But when Microsoft finally gets it right, it relegates it to the ghetto of the Web. Dumb.
