Microsoft’s still got it all wrong
A few weeks back I posted something I’d written about Microsoft’s recent ad campaign, which in my opinion continues to fail as an effort to win back market and mindshare from Apple.
Now they’ve launched a new ad, which can be viewed here, and again I think they’ve missed the mark. I read one interesting article that goes into detail on the ad as well as reactions from Apple employees and partners,. It quotes one Apple reseller as saying “It certainly looks like a lazy campaign in which the primary focus is on price instead of value.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. My question after watching the ad was “yeah, but did she get home and realize it was a piece of crap?” The ad ends with her happily showing off her new laptop, but it’s still in the box. I want to know how she feels about the purchase a few weeks or months later.
Here’s another interesting article on the campaign.
Let me know what you think of the ad…
—UPDATE (4/13/09)—
A coworker just pointed out this article to me. It’s by Dan Lyons at Newsweek, who argues in favor of Microsoft’s most recent ads. His point is that the ads, beyond highlighting the price gap, carry “a far more damaging subtext: that people who buy Macs aren’t necessarily cool, clued-in hipsters. In fact, they might just be poseurs who paid too much for a computer–slash–fashion accessory.”
I’m glad the article doesn’t conclude that the ads are good because they show that PCs are cheaper. Clinging to low price as a point of differentiation is a last resort that may help in the short term, but could severely damage the brand in the post-recession long term. In fact, these ads strike me as more of a death knell than a new beginning, as Lyons suggests. (Although it would be silly to predict Microsoft’s imminent failure.)
I don’t disagree with everything Lyons writes, but he’s far from convinced me that these ads will positively impact the brand in the long term.
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Obviously someone with a $1,000 budget isn’t going to be purchasing a MacBook, so what point are the Microsoft ads trying to prove? That PCs are cheap? Most people already know that. It’s near impossible to get a new Mac for under a grand; that doesn’t make them “too cool.” If the people in the commercials were given bigger budgets, I’m willing to bet they’d choose higher quality laptops (Macs).
As for your question about how Lauren will feel about her new laptop in a few weeks or months – I’d say she’ll probably regret the purchase after it crashes and she has to send it in to be fixed, only to find she’s lost all her files. Her buyers remorse will return about six months later when the next technical issue arises.