Money talks. A big ad campaign will produce much increased Zune sales.
And it's also true for Apple. Many people buy iPods because they have seen all of those TV ads and billboards, not because they did extensive comparison shopping.
Come to think of it, a good number of iPod purchasers are filling demands of their kids, who specifically plead for iPods. And kids are greatly influenced by advertising.
Which kids? The same kids who are specifically pleading for MacBooks? ... Windows, and the ever-uncool Microsoft is getting long in the tooth (and those who may want Vista will have to start thinking about replacing their old PCs anyway), and and the Zune is too late in the game. It doesn't matter that they have 95% of PC marketshare and a lot of money to burn. So did the Roman Empire, for that matter (money, not marketshare
😛 )! Remember what that guy from Creative said about "spending billions on advertising"? Dit it work? They even had to resort to a foul patent infringement lawsuit to earn some cash and keep afloat!
Sure, if there's a company that can easily perform a media-blitz, it's Microsoft, but OTOH, if there's a company which is ALREADY doing it (try "doing it from day one"), it's Apple... It's actually quite impressive for such a small company! But then again, everything Apple does is quite impressive on its own.
😉
Anyway, isn't Apple historically a very marketing-
happy company? "1984", "Lemmings", "Think Different", "Switch", "Silhouettes", now the "Get a Mac" campaign... Unlike a company we know, which is almost exclusively marketing-
driven (FUD, vaporware, "Office Dinossaurs", "Start... something... whatever"... "Welcome to the Social", WTF?...
🙄 ). Apple has a top notch product, and M$ does not. And they will certainly respond if M$ even attempts doing something that remotely resembles a media-blitz, and will certainly come out on top (especially if, as a product-driven company that they are, they keep coming up with a stream of new, competitive iPods...).
The Zune is DOA, I'm afraid... And Microsoft isn't looking too good, either, and even though they'll still be around 10-15 years from now, they probably won't reach their 50th anniversary (unlike Apple, I'm guessing)... I might be wrong, but IMHO, this whole Zune-to-be debacle will be the first (or is it?) among many nails in M$'s coffin, because in this case they initially set out to compete with an established and nearly invincible leader, unlike their constant (and not that successful) attempts at controling emerging markets. Honestly, why does M$ keeps trying to "innovate" on each and every market, instead of just focusing on the PC platform? They are only making fools of themselves by reusing (our outright copying) other companies' designs, by slapping stock photos and un-catchy slogans all over their software and websites, etc...
🙄
People may have fallen for their lines for 20+ years, but they may one day wise up as far as the PC market is concerned, I hope (of course, someone would have to come up with a viable Windows competitor, whether Apple's own OS X - not very likely for reasons everyone in this board is more than aware of -, or some OSS driven platform, who knows?)... Because they're already showing signs of that on the consumer electronics market.
😎
