Microsoft is without a doubt diversifying the collection of resources behind the new $300 million Widows marketing campaign created by advertising agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. From Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld's the Future Is Delicious to I'm a PC; Windows vs. Walls; Life Without Walls; the fake “I'm a PC Guy” John Hodgman (aka Sean Siller, senior program manager for networking in the Windows Core Operating System Division), the Redmond giant is evolving along its initial Free the People strategy designed to tell the truth about Windows. The first signs of Microsoft clearing its voice in the market were delivered by Brad Brooks, corporate vice president, Windows Consumer Product Marketing as early as the start of June 2008.
The Windows Brand vs. the Windows Products
“Windows has always been about putting the power of computing in the hands of people. All of these efforts are designed to reconnect and re-ignite our customers’ imaginations around the value of Windows in their lives today, and the promise of Windows in their lives tomorrow,” explained Bill Veghte, Senior Vice President, Online Services & Windows Business Group with the initial launch of the Windows campaign on September 4.
Microsoft is laboring to span Windows across various segments of the consumer market, delivering a segmentation in relation to the PC, to mobile phones and to the Cloud. In this manner, the Redmond company is elevating the Windows brand above the products that it is inherently associated with. Designed as a subtle divorce between Windows and the underlying software solutions or cloud services, the strategy is to make the brand independent of any product.
While the Windows brand has indeed suffered because of competitors such as Apple, the fact is that it has also been hurt by Microsoft itself. The Redmond giant can go head over heels with multi-million marketing campaigns but it won't change the fact that Windows Vista as a product has eroded the Windows brand. At the same time, the company's modest positioning on the operating system market for mobile phones, coupled with the confusing soup of applications and services between MSN and Windows Live for the past years, has also impacted the value of Windows, at a conceptual level.
Traditionally, the brand functions as a representation of the quality and experiences delivered by a product. But Microsoft is not connecting Windows with any specific product, not even with Windows Vista. The fact is that the marketing campaign is not telling consumers to crowd the stores for a must-have operating system, or mobile phone, or to burn their broadband connections downloading Windows Live Wave 3. In this sense, the campaign continues to be about nothing, much as the initial Seinfeld and Gates commercials, while pushing Windows as a ubiquitous, universal concept.
Still, Microsoft is indeed advertising the Windows brand. The company is actually creating a new feeling for consumers acquiring anything with a Windows logo on it. A feeling that they are part of a global community of over 1 billion people, and that they should be proud of this status, proud of having choices beyond anything any platform worldwide can offer, of their individuality, of the fact that stereotypes exist only in one-sided conversations, and not when they make their voices heard.
Reaction vs. Action
“Imagine no walls,” reads an invitation from Microsoft. “Where you connect to a global community of more than a billion people and nothing comes between you and a world of ideas and opportunities. With Windows on your mobile phone, PC, or the web, walls begin to disappear—at home, at the office, and anywhere in between. You can balance work and life as well as fun and functionality. And with a wide range of software, services, and devices to choose from, your technology can be as unique as you are. That's Windows. Life without walls.”
Make no mistake about it. Microsoft has finally come out gunning for Apple, long-overdue moment, perhaps even as much as the delivery of Windows XP Service Pack 3. The damage delivered by the Cupertino-based hardware company to Microsoft's products and brands has forced the Redmond giant to dig deep into its pockets and caught up a reported but unconfirmed $300 million for Windows advertising in a year when there isn't a new iteration of the operating system launch. By comparison, Microsoft spent $500 million on the Windows Vista release at the end of January 2008. Now the ball is in Apple's court. Apple is reduced to reacting, because it is obvious that as Microsoft has turned the I'm a PC weapon against the Cupertino-based hardware company, the traditional “get a Mac” ads will no longer do the trick.
Windows vs. Walls
“This epic struggle explains why we make what we make and do what we do. The thing that gets us out of bed every day is the prospect of creating pathways above, below, around and through walls. To start a dialogue between hundreds of devices, billions of people and a world of ideas. To lift up the smallest of us. And catapult the most audacious of us. But, most importantly, to connect all of us to the four corners of our own digital lives and to each other. To go on doing the little stuff, the big stuff, the crazy stuff and that ridiculously necessary stuff. On our own or together. This is more than software we're talking about. It's an approach to life. An approach dedicated to engineering the absence of anything that might stand in the way... of life. Today, more than one billion people worldwide have Windows. Which is just another way of saying we have each other,” Microsoft reveals.
Microsoft vs. Apple – PC Guy is slapping Mac Guy in the face. Can you see it?
One Microsoft ad was sufficient to shatter the Apple I'm a PC Guy stereotype. The test is simple. Watch Microsoft's “I'm a PC” bits embedded at the bottom of this article and then go ahead and watch a recently introduced Apple ad in the NY Times. The fact is that the Get a Mac video ads have lost their edge, they are no longer as smart, as funny, as appealing, as ironical as they used to be. All of a sudden, Apple has been downgraded to nothing more than an elitist and snobby joggler with cheap marketing tricks up its sleeve.
Is this a Microsoft press release? Or has the author been out for too many drinks with the PR team. It begins sensibly enough, but the final line: "All of a sudden, Apple has been downgraded to nothing more than an elitist and snobby joggler with cheap marketing tricks up its sleeve", displays either a lack of marketing knowledge, or a one-sided and (dare I say it?) slightly embittered view of the world.
Apple's marketing advantage in recent years has been primarily because it delivers products that deliver its core brand promise — and because that's a promise that consumers now want to have. It was not always so. During the days of the Mac 4400, with a plethora of clones on the market, and OS 7.76 delivering a buggy, unfulfilling experience, the product, irrespective of the power of Microsoft's offering, did not live up to the Apple promise of an interesting, innovative and easy to use world. Previously, the Apple Newton was so far down the 'bleeding edge' that it was virtually useless (despite its cameo in Under Siege 2), while the Mac Classic was so underpowered and overpriced compared to Windows offerings that it entirely failed to engage with private buyers in the way it was meant to.
Roll on to 1998, and the creation of the iMac set the consumer world buzzing in a way which few computer-based products had done for a long time. Although commercially less successful, the 2000 Cube achieved iconic status, leading up to the launch of the iPod in 2001. Apple was not first to market with an MP3 player, but the combination of iPod and iTunes proved unbeatable. The success of the iPhone over the last year may have been initially due to strong marketing, but the iPhone 3G and the launch of the App Store has once again pushed Apple to the top of the user-interface tree.
Microsoft can market all it likes, but the only thing which will downgrade Apple in the popular imagination is failure by Apple itself to deliver on its brand promise. The reason that the Apple anti-Windows ads worked (though I personally just found them irritating) was because they reflected a perception people already had. Apple's advertising has moved on, with the Airbook appearing out of an envelope, while the initial unavailability of iPhone 3Gs (because of popularity) gave it a huge head of PR steam.
Microsoft makes some great products, and deserves a better reputation than it sometimes gets, especially for its philanthropic work. But the writer's suggestion above, that a Windows ad-campaign can downgrade Apple, is, essentially ludicrous.
I would like to be clear and simple:
An apple product is a hyper rated but disappointingly third class product that has no technological edge to show whatsoever, made by a third class OEM supplier in China that is only over prop up because it just so happen to be like a plain bread chocolate coated lexus but is just a fancied lousy toyota. PERIOD.
Wanna disagree with me? visit quanta electronics factory.
I agree. If Microsoft has been so successful, it is because the quality of their products has been much more consistent than Apple's. Come on people! 90% of the worlds users use Windows, Office and Windows media Player for a reason! Apple on the other hand releases something halfway good every 10 years or so, like the i Mac and the I Pod (which wasn't even designed by apple in the first place). Sure, the products have a "Pretty Boy" interface but under the veneer, they cannot compete with Windows. People say that their OS may be secure, but that is because no one thought it was good enough to hack. True, their much touted I Phone is real eye candy. Unfortunately, that is all that it is. It is impossibly heavy on the pocket, and impossibly hard on the user. Apple may not suck totally, but it is an open secret that Microsoft outclasses them WHERE IT MATTERS.
Microsoft has been forcing its product into the market for years now and leaving consumers with no choice but to use their product. As you see most pre built systems these days come with Windows mostly Windows Vista its crazy. Why cant they come with linux. Linux offers a better interface, needs less system requirements. And is not a resource hog. Linux can also run all the programs that Windows can. It is also more secure, meaning if your lucky you dont need AV protection you dont even need third party firewall protection because Linux comes with it. Another advantage with linux is you dont have to burn a hole in your wallet to get the latest software etc. Instead of spending 400$ + on the new 'microsoft office suite' you can easily download Open Office. I've found it does the job and is so easy to use, even comes with more fonts by default.
So I think consumers should look at the real picture and ask themselves where will Microsoft and Apple be in 10 years and we will Linux be. We all know how Bill Gates made his money, he theived the source code from his his little friend David Kildorf. "If Bill Gates can do this why cant we" Maybe because its against the law! do i dare say. Why pay those high prices for Microsoft software when everybody should get it free. - Just like Bill Gates.
If you did a print test on the first IBM computer's with Mircosoft operating systems, you would have seen David Kildorf's name
Nobody should get left holding the bag for expensive software after the biggest theft in the 20th Century
Shame on you Bill Gates.
The only thing that has benefited from you making your money is the charities that you donate your money to. The world hasn't benefited at all.
Just to add to your shame Bill Gates, did i hear that you were running Linux on your mail servers, ftp servers etc. It is shameful to see your company forcing computer manufacturers to pre install windows vista on systems with 512mb ram, They run like a bloody dog.
All vista is good for is nothing, you even do a google search. All is comes up with is "20 good reasons not to get Vista" etc.
I think you should strongly consider what market you are aiming your products for. And look at what linux is doing. They will be the one who will still be around in 10-20 years time.
Comment #5 by: Anonymous on 02 Oct 2008, 08:10 GMT
mac user: mac's are better they're always so better, how bout this; this is better! you're wrong for wanting this or that feature, windows user!
windows users: Z0MG!!!one i got vista coz it was on my laptop and I r0xor @ Xbox. Mac's suck bcoz [misinformation].
linux user: I want you to know about how awesome linux is, despite it being irrelevant, and being the OS eqivalent of having a retarded child working for you.
/comments
Comment #6 by: former mac user? on 03 Nov 2008, 04:08 GMT
It concerns me about what has been happening lately with apple products over the past couple of years. Despite increasing their market share, the overall quality of every product has most definitely suffered. It is very unfortunate and is creating a void in the niche market of high end computer reliability.
