Microsoft 'Pride' : But "I'm a MAC"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svGmDtZpKcY

Microsoft has launched the latest phase in its million dolloar windows marketing effort designed to reconnect with consumers.

A series of new ads have all been designed around connecting with consumers in meaningful ways throughout their windows experience – whether buying a PC, using a Windows Mobile device, or living life on the Web.

They feature a diverse group of faces which aim to represent the one billion people who use Windows PCs worldwide, all celebrating the sense of power and community Windows enables by declaring: “I’m a PC.”

Green architect Edouard Francois, astronaut Bernard Harris and celebrities such as Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra all feature, but the main focus is on real PC users of all ages and from all walks of life, such as teachers, cabbies, designers and fishmongers.

“One of the really fun things we’ve done is to create a series of ads called ‘I’m a PC’ - and we’re enabling every PC user to upload their own I’m a PC spot,” Senior Vice President, Online Services & Windows Business Group, Bill Veghte, said.

“So you can upload it and we’ll publish it and amplify it on windows.com…and then we’ll do better than that – we’ll publish some of those I’m a PC spots in places like digital billboards in Times Square.”

Microsoft will extend the ‘Life Without Walls’ campaign via press, billboards, digital “walkway” ads in airports and other advertising components. Additionally, new outdoor and print ads show how Windows has evolved to work across multiple devices: the desktop PC, laptops, phones and TVs.

The new ads also show how Windows connects across multiple devices, such as laptops, phones, and TVs.

Microsoft hits back against the smugness of the Mac Vs PC ads.
Making an ad campign on the defensive is a horrible thing. The thing is microsoft is yet to make a campaign based on the merits of their products. More over MS sort of missed the point - Apple’s ads don’t depict a Mac user and a PC user, but rather a Mac and a PC, personified. That’s important because it makes the messaging less about stereotyping computer users and more about how the Mac is a hipper, more personable, more media-savvy machine. And that’s something that appeals to all sorts of people.

By going defensive, MS creates much more of an “Us vs. Them” mentality than Apple ever intended. Maybe if there were more humans running MS, they would have also picked up on that distinction.