Microsoft stunt sends wrong message

[MacBytes]

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Category: Microsoft
Link: Microsoft stunt sends wrong message (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20080801175747)
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Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
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[rickdollar]

Pretty funny article. That Mojave commercial is REALLY bad. They need a new ad agency. It's about the most boring commercial ever.

[Shasterball]

Wow. That is one harsh review. But he is spot on. i really didn't understand these Mojave commercials because they were clearly cutting down their own company. So sad to see them trip up again and again.

[t0mat0]

When John C. Dvorak agrees it's stupid, it kinda really rams the point home.

The likelihood of the mostly humorless Microsoft approach to advertising somehow matching Apple's in effectiveness is nil. In this race for mindshare, Microsoft is the tortoise and Apple is the hare.

But unlike in the fable where the hare dawdled, Apple left the starting line two years early and has been going full tilt ever since. The tortoise is apparently brain-damaged and doing nothing.

[Daveoc64]

I think they entirely miss the point of the ads.

Apple's ads have always been inaccurate representations of things designed to give people a limited view of the world.

These ads by Microsoft will at least make the average person think twice before uninstalling Vista on their PC because they heard it eats their babies.

[.Andy]

These ads by Microsoft will at least make the average person think twice before uninstalling Vista on their PC because they heard it eats their babies.
The last people the MS ads are targeted at are people who already own a copy of vista.

[Daveoc64]

The last people the MS ads are targeted at are people who already own a copy of vista.

I didn't mean that.

I meant all the people who get a new PC with Windows Vista and immediately want to uninstall it or ask for a PC with Windows XP instead - purely because they've heard bad things. MS is still getting paid, but it's not good for the company.

The people in the ads don't have a clue about anything and they're just going on word of mouth - they are targeting that market.

[alexbo]

I think it's a really good point that the whole Mojave commercial idea is based on Microsoft proving the point that everyone hates windows vista. The fact that they may be wrong to hate it so much is really a pretty small consolation.

I like the brain-damaged tortoise analogy...

Still, I built a PC about 3 months ago and run Vista. I'm happy with my choice --PCs can play more games!

[Tallest Skil]

When I first saw the Mojave spot, after thinking, "They paid those people to react like that," I thought to myself, "Self, it's just too bad that they have to lie to people about what Vista really is to get them to 'like' it"

[gcmexico]

nice article and right on the money!

[sushi]

Pretty good article.

Makes sense. Don't think that the new ads are doing Microsoft any favors.

[adversecamber]

I wonder what an "MS Windows" forum would be saying about that article...

[IJ Reilly]

It's tough to agree with John Dvorak, but in this case he's thumped the brad on the noggin. Instead of trying to do something right, Microsoft is trying to tell people that they're wrong. Brilliant.

[thecrackerjack]

How much of a 'Vista' experience are you going to get on a laptop?

I went to a local Staples and looked at laptops from 699 to 1799$, given the range in price none are any higher then 3.5 on the Vista scale. (ranging from 3.2 to 3.5)

I have a couple observations/questions for the 'experiment'.
1. What did they do on the Mojive laptop that proved Vista?

2. What hardware configuration was used? (Was the OS stripped down to be optimized for that hardware configuration?)

3. Where any of the people interviewed actually technical and would have the slightest bit of knowledge on how to test an OS?

[IJ Reilly]

1. What did they do on the Mojive laptop that proved Vista?

This might be the perfect (if accidental) description of the ad campaign: "mo jive."

[swingerofbirch]

I would guess that they showed people things you've been able to do on a Mac or PC for a while now and they just didn't know you could do those things and so it elicited a response.

I was showing my therapist pictures on my iPod touch the other day and she was hugely amazed at me flipping through the pics with my finger, and it was just because she had never seen an iPhone or iPod touch.

For all we know these people could have been tickled pink to see Microsoft Paint or that Ski game (which is actually kind of fun...)

I don't know that they necessarily had to do any fancy tricks. Who knows what these people might have done had they been told Vista comes with a free ham sandwich? I predict a Tom Cruise sofa jumping response.

[ClassicMac247]

those idiots at microsoft can't win!!!! hahaha

[ayzee]

Seems Microsoft are pretty desperate with this advert, but I also think its a pretty good advert for the target audience they are going for.

[t0mat0]

Pretty good article.

Makes sense. Don't think that the new ads are doing Microsoft any favors.

And this isn't even the main advert event...

The problem with advertising Vista is... it's advertisiting Vista, and asking for comparisons.

[clevin]

in real world, vista is 16% market share, OSX is 4%.

get over the jealousy and pull your heads out of the Reality Distortion Field of apple:p

[IJ Reilly]

in real world, vista is 16% market share, OSX is 4%.

get over the jealousy and pull your heads out of the Reality Distortion Field of apple:p

In the "real world" this has absolutely nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

[wadejc85]

Good article.. :D

[wadejc85]

I wonder what an "MS Windows" forum would be saying about that article...

I bet they are avoiding the topic, considering they don't want to admit the advertising campaign didn't exactly work as Microsoft planned. ;)

[wadejc85]

This might be the perfect (if accidental) description of the ad campaign: "mo jive."

Hahaha! Perfect!

(Sorry for the three posts in a row!)

[Tallest Skil]

in real world, vista is 16% market share, OSX is 4%.

get over the jealousy and pull your heads out of the Reality Distortion Field of apple:p

This (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=11) says 7.7% for Apple and 17% for Vista. Don't underestimate us. :rolleyes:

[clevin]

This (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=11) says 7.7% for Apple and 17% for Vista. Don't underestimate us. :rolleyes:

before you cite data, you should do some research and understand the source you cited is mostly US data, which is 30% of world market. Not a small fraction, but sorry is still not the "world"

[t0mat0]

in real world, vista is 16% market share, OSX is 4%.

get over the jealousy and pull your heads out of the Reality Distortion Field of apple:p

and that market share, how much went straight to downgrades to XP? ;)

[clevin]

and that market share, how much went straight to downgrades to XP? ;)

well, you can compare numbers.

M$ sold 180 million vista licenses, Vista has16-18% market share now, which corresponds to about 160 million to 220 million Vista users. guess the "downgrade" is not that significant as somebody wants you to believe.. :)

[jplan2008]

I think they entirely miss the point of the ads.

Apple's ads have always been inaccurate representations of things designed to give people a limited view of the world.

These ads by Microsoft will at least make the average person think twice before uninstalling Vista on their PC because they heard it eats their babies.

Apple Ads:
Problem: "I (PC Guy) think that I (my windows OS/machine) has major problems"
Solution: "Get a Mac."

Mo Jive (liked that one) ads:
Problem: "You (PC Owner) think you (your windows OS/machine) has major problems."
Solution: "Gotcha, you idiot!"

The ads are basically saying THE SAME THING about Vista -- whether you think it's accurate or not. (I'm tired of the "Get a Mac" ads personally, but if they're working I can see why Apple would continue)

[mkrishnan]

guess the "downgrade" is not that significant as somebody wants you to believe.. :)

Factored into this should probably be the percentage of home / personal users of computers with Vista that actually have the technical skills to downgrade to XP without botching their computer up even farther (that's not a Windows jab... if you could do downgrades on Macs I would suspect the same).

I'm fine with MS having performed the experiment. It says that the Vista experience fresh at this point is reasonably acceptable. But they should have kept the results to themselves. In terms of marketing, they should stick with humble pie -- look, we understand that people had trouble with this migration. We're in it for the long haul with you. We've fixed many of those problems, provided guides on how to resolve common issues, and we think the new Vista user experience now is something of which we can be proud. So please come and give us another chance.

[clevin]

they should stick with humble pie -- look, we understand that people had trouble with this migration. We're in it for the long haul with you. We've fixed many of those problems, provided guides on how to resolve common issues, and we think the new Vista user experience now is something of which we can be proud. So please come and give us another chance.

I think its a tough call, to take the "humble" approach, they would be telling users that they think the impression of vista that users having are true.

The problem is, the experiments, so called, if is true, directly indicate the bad impression of vista is not true.

Media always make things worse or better in more significant way than they really are, I guess we need a way of define "success" or "fail" of the ads before jumping into the conclusion so quick.

PS, this seems an online only ads, which probably means M$ is targeting the tech savvy users with this one, so Its reasonable to make it little bit more complicated than ads that have to face general TV audience. I doubt M$ would put this one on TV.

[mkrishnan]

The problem is, the experiments, so called, if is true, directly indicate the bad impression of vista is not true.

Maybe my understanding of this whole Mojave business is off, but I thought, in essence, the bad impression of Vista was true -- that is, was true of the launch day version of Vista (and particularly of upgrading XP computers to it), but is not true now with the latest fully updated Vista.

[galstaph]

LMAO that is funny, the review is spot on, but the commercial is just hilarious!:D The people in it are the same type of people who want ME to fix their windows issues.... ignorant average users looking to get a better solitare experience. Vista does have nice eye candy, if you can run it, when the operating system isn't buggin' out like Tori Spelling's eyes ;)

AS to adding the trash talk about vista at first... um yeah, by the time people tune out the rest of the commercial (low attention spans in N. America remember?), they will hear nothing about how Mojave is really vista in a new wrapping.

I could make a better ad! But of course I'd have to make it on my mac, and use my mbp in the ad, covering up the :apple: of course so no-one knows and using osx and safari to show browsing and productivity etc....

But anyway, M$ is really grabbing at straws lately it seems... The hegemony rarely notices the revolt before it is too late.....

[clevin]

Maybe my understanding of this whole Mojave business is off, but I thought, in essence, the bad impression of Vista was true -- that is, was true of the launch day version of Vista (and particularly of upgrading XP computers to it), but is not true now with the latest fully updated Vista.

I read some benchmarks comparing vista and vista SP1, there is indeed improvements, but they are really not that big of a change.

I think about the only real problem with Vista, is those "vista ready" labels on 512MB RAM machines. But nowadays everything is so cheap, ppl purchases computers every 2 or 3 years. I don't see 512MB is a problem with "new users" anymore.

For those who tried vista with their "vista ready" <1G RAM machines, I can see the problem, I m just not sure if their numbers are big enough to warrant all the bad press Vista get at all.

[gkarris]

How much of a 'Vista' experience are you going to get on a laptop?

I went to a local Staples and looked at laptops from 699 to 1799$, given the range in price none are any higher then 3.5 on the Vista scale. (ranging from 3.2 to 3.5)

I have a couple observations/questions for the 'experiment'.
1. What did they do on the Mojive laptop that proved Vista?

2. What hardware configuration was used? (Was the OS stripped down to be optimized for that hardware configuration?)

3. Where any of the people interviewed actually technical and would have the slightest bit of knowledge on how to test an OS?

I went to an MS Workshop - the MS trainers were great guys. I looked at their laptops. One had an HP, the other, a Thinkpad. Both with 4 Gigs RAM, a high speed hard drive, and a high-end graphics card.

That's why Vista ran so "great"... :eek:

The test subjects didn't know they were using Vista?

"And they couldn't tell the difference. Why am I not surprised?" Lt. Col. Mitchell, Stargate SG-1, "The Powers That Be" :D

[trd1282]

See post number 14. I owned a toshiba that said VISTA CAPABLE, installed it, complete junk. I would like to see them run that "mojave" gig on that piece of crap, and then label it again "VISTA CAPABLE" to try and sell the piece of ***** to that same focus group, even IF they configured the thing in house to run their advertisement ploy perfectly. It makes no sense to me that my power mac G4 (867 mhz) runs apple's most current OS seamlessly, yet a certain percentage of NEW PC's can barely run Vista at all.

COMMON SENSE...

[polyesterlester]

The problem with this ad campaign is, the people who witness it are most likely people who are already "in the know." The campaign won't even make a blip on the radar of the kinds of people who relate to the people in the ads.

The people who witness this campaign will be people like us, and other people who've already experienced Vista in some capacity. People who seriously have no idea what Vista is like? They'll never see the site.

[BongoBanger]

In the "real world" this has absolutely nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

*Reads comments*

Quite so.

Maybe my understanding of this whole Mojave business is off, but I thought, in essence, the bad impression of Vista was true -- that is, was true of the launch day version of Vista (and particularly of upgrading XP computers to it), but is not true now with the latest fully updated Vista.

Correct. The advert - if you can call it that - is about perceptual shift. It's not about selling Vista - that's what the $300 million campaign ) of which this is not part) is about.

[Kilamite]

PS, this seems an online only ads, which probably means M$ is targeting the tech savvy users with this one, so Its reasonable to make it little bit more complicated than ads that have to face general TV audience. I doubt M$ would put this one on TV.

Oh yes, I'm sure MS are aiming this ad at the technical users - showing you a bunch of barely computer literate people talking about how good they think Vista is now.

[mkrishnan]

Oh yes, I'm sure MS are aiming this ad at the technical users - showing you a bunch of barely computer literate people talking about how good they think Vista is now.

Have ya seen how Microsoft tries to relate to technical audiences (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4860483760049380308)? :eek: ;)

Well... it's a very careful game they're playing at best in terms of disaster management (and I'm not sure Mojave could be classified as at best). Their strategy has been clearly and repeatedly described by the media as counting primarily on Windows 7 or whatever it's called as the ladder out of this hole, rather than really being devoted to Vista. But if the next decade is like the last decade, and (a sizable minority of) people continue holding onto PCs for 5-7 years or more and expecting them to be highly functional, then even in 2012-2015, there will probably be hundreds of millions of copies of Vista out there in the install base.

[cal6n]

*snip*

Apple's ads have always been inaccurate representations of things designed to give people a limited view of the world.

*snip*

(My emphasis)

Er, no. While there is an allowance for humour, Apple's ads are not considered inaccurate by the Advertising Standards Authority in this country. If they were they'd be pulled from the air faster than you can say "PowerMac G5"! :)

[Eidorian]

Something feels wrong about John C. Dvorak™ (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=4660771&postcount=8) time around here.

[Yvan256]

One of the first few comments is "Vista made me a Mac user." :cool:

[smootling]

One thing we've got to keep in mind is that Vista selling can not be used to prove the advertising is working (or that Vista is popular). Both of those things might very well be true, but on both sides of the Apple vs Microsoft aisle we've got to recognize that microsoft could release the worst, buggiest operating system of all time and apple would still not overtake them. Again, we can't say Vista is now popular when Microsoft contractually forbids anyone to sell XP anymore.

Personally I never thought Vista was as horrible as people said; if I ordered a new PC laptop and it came with Vista, I'd be fine. The problem is there is almost no justification for updating from XP to Vista, especially on older hardware (which XP is more likely to be installed on). I hope Vista gets more popular; the more Apple has to directly compete with Microsoft, the better it works out for us consumers on both sides.

[MacGeek7]

It's amazing how much the MS website looks like the intro to the first AppleTV

[Acuity Mac Guru]

Recent press announced a 300M dollar ad campaign with Crispin Porter + Bogusky. These guys have done an awesome job with Burger King, VW, and others, if this ad is part of this campaign, I would not be too quick to judge the success or failure, CP+B's ads are unique and can be alternative, but they work.

And no I don't work for CP+B ;)

[IJ Reilly]

Recent press announced a 300M dollar ad campaign with Crispin Porter + Bogusky. These guys have done an awesome job with Burger King, VW, and others, if this ad is part of this campaign, I would not be too quick to judge the success or failure, CP+B's ads are unique and can be alternative, but they work.

And no I don't work for CP+B ;)

Ad campaigns aren't made entirely by the ad agency though. The client has a lot to do with it.

[laprej]

I like to think that I have something to do with the increasing Mac market share. Hear me out: when I first got a Mac in 2001 it was because of two reasons: it had a RISC processor inside, and it was unix at the core. Now seven years later no more RISC, still got unix - plus it got a lot more user-friendly and that's saying a lot: it was always a Mac. When anyone asks me what computer to buy, and lots of people do because I'm a CS guy who knows his computers, unless they have a very Windows-centric app to run, I recommend a Mac. Some of them have listened, some of them haven't, but the ones who listened don't regret it, and the ones who haven't are just hung up on things like, "Macs are too expensive", etc. I'm not going to get into that, but the rest of my argument should stand on its own. That, and the iPod + iPhone halo effect helps, too :)

[Silencio]

Ad campaigns aren't made entirely by the ad agency though. The client has a lot to do with it.

As someone who has worked in advertising for a long time: this is spot on. The client is always free to shoot down your great ideas. There's only so much CP+B will be able to do with Microsoft's horrible branding and clueless marketing execs. Microsoft has numbed the creative minds of previous hotshot ad agencies they've employed in the past (Weiden & Kennedy, Anderson & Lembke), so I'm not hold my breath that the new shop in town will do much better.

Besides, I loathe that Burger King campaign. It's like they were shooting for the wit of Jack in the Box's ads, but ended up with the tired duuuuuuude ethos of Carl's Jr's spots instead.

[coupdetat]

Maybe the advertising folks were mad that their Vista PC's were so slow, so they made Microsoft a crappy ad?

Anyways, this debate about marketshare is sooo off topic. Personally, I think the ad sends the wrong message... it just seems whiney, like "no one will give us a chance! sniff sniff". Managing customer perceptions should be a major part of every company, and MS got lazy in that department with Vista.

[Kilamite]

It's amazing how much the MS website looks like the intro to the first AppleTV

Apple stole the idea anyway.

[IJ Reilly]

As someone who has worked in advertising for a long time: this is spot on. The client is always free to shoot down your great ideas. There's only so much CP+B will be able to do with Microsoft's horrible branding and clueless marketing execs. Microsoft has numbed the creative minds of previous hotshot ad agencies they've employed in the past (Weiden & Kennedy, Anderson & Lembke), so I'm not hold my breath that the new shop in town will do much better.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the ad agency also doesn't usually conduct the focus groups that supposedly tell the company what kind of message they should be trying to convey. If a company doesn't know where they want to go, no ad agency in the world can help them much.

I'm remembering the horrible "butterfly" ads Microsoft ran some years ago. You could tell from these ads that Microsoft was trying to soften their corporate image. Did it work? Probably not, because this isn't what Microsoft really needed -- and if Microsoft doesn't know that, then who will?

[t0mat0]

It's amazing how much the MS website looks like the intro to the first AppleTV

Don't forget they stole Apple's ad firm stole that concept ;)