Microsoft Vandalizes NYC

Brooklyn Bob writes "The New York Times (free registration etc.) is reporting that New York Tells Microsoft to Get Its Butterfly Decals Out of Town. Sure, it's "corporate graffiti", but the butterfly looks pretty good on the subway entrance." The story only covers a small part of their efforts to promote MSN, the "Microsoft operating system required" internet service. The first submission we got about the campaign described another part of it: Latent IT writes "I wish I had a link to submit with this, but strange things are afoot in New York City. At 61st and Broadway, 30-40 guys and gals in butterfly suits colored in the Microsoft colors, and carrying MSN banners just rollerbladed by, screaming at the top of their lungs down the middle of Broadway. Interestingly enough, this took them right near the under construction AOL Time Warner building. It seemed worth jotting down, but they were literally gone and down the street before I could reach my digital camera. (Place all bug on windshield jokes here.)"

Comments

Vandalizes?

[yohaas]

That might be little strong. They didn't do any damage. Get over it.

Re:Vandalizes?

[toupsie]

That might be little strong. They didn't do any damage. Get over it.

Wrong! I work near Madison Ave. Yesterday morning and this morning I watched building supers scraping off the stupid butterflies off their buildings. The stickers are on the sidewalks as well and they have that slick coating. I am just waiting for an old lady to face plant right into traffic. You are not going to get a city employee to scrape them up -- they have better unions than the building supers.

This is just as annoying as IBM's stupid "Peace, Love and Linux" campaign of last year where the stickered everything and spray painted their logo at every street corner.

Beat y'all to it. :)

[Triv]

Check out my journal on the subject from last week. I was going to submit it, but for the life of me couldn't figure out where it'd go, assumed it would be rejected and blogged it instead. :)

Triv

MSN 8?

[moeman]

Anyone notice the comercials that just started playing for the NEW version of MSN, simply called "MSN 8"? Hmmm, now I admit I have no idea what version they were on before, but it seems a little suspiciouse that MSN 8 is being released on the heals of the new AOL version 8.0. My only real question is, why didn't MS go ahead and call it "MSN 9" just to get one step ahead?

They've done this before, and should know better

[Zeddicus_Z]

You really think Microsoft would have learned after doing this before and having it backfire on them.

When the Xbox launched here in Australia, Microsoft spent obscene amounts of money on the advertising campaign (it actually began a few months prior to launch). Part of this was to spraypaint the green Xbox X on the sidewalk at pretty much every bus stop in central Sydney. Needless to say, the relevent local councils were not amused.

As far as I know, the responsible parties were ordered by the court to pay for council workers to clean every single spray. However, Microsoft is nothing if not careful, and instead of doing the original grafitti themselves, they'd contracted it to a local, well-known (in the industry) PR company.

Last we heard, poor [company name omitted] were stuck not only with the bill for councils to clean up the Microsoft grafitti, but also the responsability to clean it off themselves (the more they got to, the less council had to do and thus the less they paid).

Video of Bill Gates in butterfly outfit...

[httpamphibio.us]

I've read on a couple sites that during the video Gates showed at the MSN8 release he was in a butterfly costume doing something... anyone have a link to this?

Not exactly vandalism

[nicedream]

From the article:

The butterflies found on vertical surfaces were made of flimsy plastic, held in place by static electricity and easily removable. The sidewalk decals were a heavier plastic, with a roughly textured surface. Though they were stuck to the pavement, they too could be lifted off fairly easily.

Since the article specifically says the butterflies can be easily removed, I don't know if I'd call this vandalism. It's certainly less damaging than what IBM did in San Fran. Typical /. anti-MS sensationalism.

Of course, it is dispicable for a company (MS, IBM, whoever) to just take over public property for the purpose of their advertising campaigns. There are proper ways of advertising, and this isn't one of them.

Re:Not exactly vandalism

[greenhide]

Yes, it was vandalism.

They may be "easily removeable" in the sense that it doesn't require crowbars or solvents to remove, but that doesn't mean that it still doesn't require labor -- workers that the city must pay for to remove these buterflies.

The article states that the stickers obstructed travel for those in wheelchairs or similarly physically disabled. They had to be removed to ensure the safety of those people. Thus, in a sense, the stickers obviously were a threat to public safety, although that threat was limited in its scope and damage. Possibly the worst thing that would have happened is someone would slip and break a hip, but hey -- wouldn't that be great advertising for Microsoft, too? They could offer the poor invalid a laptop with a complimentary 3 month subscription to MSN 8.

Also, let's compare Microsoft to, say, some activist who puts up a bunch of leaflets protesting the war in Iraq.

Do you honestly think the activist would receive a letter saying, "We hope this was just a misunderstanding"? Would the activist pretend that they had received authorization to put up the signs?

From the article:

A single summons was issued, with a $50 penalty, though each butterfly could have been subject to a $50 fine, said Tom Cocola, the assistant commissioner for public affairs at the transportation agency. He said the city's chief goal was seeing to it that the decals are removed.

I say, make them pay for each one. They can certainly afford to.

What infuriates me about Corporate "guerilla" advertising is that it appropriates the methods of groups who use them because they don't have the money for traditional advertising, and because even if they did they would probably not want to support the corporate media system by running commercials on TV or buying full page ads in Newsweek. On the other hand, Microsoft and other companies are resorting to guerilla advertising because people are so jaded and don't respond to traditional Corporate advertising anymore.

Advertising used to be (way back before I was born) about letting consumers know about a product, and what it offered to the consumer in and of itself (Got Dandruff? Try Listerine! I'm not kidding -- that was in an ad from the forties or so). Nowadays, Corporate advertising is attempting to do nothing less than sell us our identity. Our choices, from the soda we drink or the car we drive to the shirts we wear or, yes, the ISP we use -- reflect not simply the need or desire for those products, but rather who we are as people (I'm a Chevrovel Cavalier Dr. Pepper Macintosh myself). However, this is backfiring these days because really most of the identies they offer are pretty much the same. Hence, the need to explore new forms of advertising, such as guerilla advertising.

Suddenly Microsoft, with a 90%+ market share of all software and the biggest, richest corporation in America is seen as rebellious, as deviant, as non-conformist. You just can't pay for that kind of advertising -- you also have to plan it carefully and then make sure the media propogates it.

Microsoft should use its money and influence to introduce positive forms of publicity. How about offering free MSN 8 to various charity organizations?

Re:This One Time, At Band Camp

[Corporate Troll]

Insightful? I don't think so. People are by now used to ignore ads because they are everywhere. Now, marketers need to be much more creative in order to get noticed...and doing extravagant (or even illegal) things will get attention in many ways. The main action stirs up dust, with a result that local newspapers will report it (or even non-local). Remember: there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Besides, with a little luck these rollerblading people with butterfly wings are cute girl. And who never fantasized about cute elfs... Oh, wait... that would be just me... did I say that out loud?

Well, at least it grabbed some attention...

[MoThugz]

not to mention the fact that it is environmentally friendly. Why did I brought up this point?

Well, because I've seen some poor form of advertising from a rising star of the PC industry . Why do I call it poor? Because they think that it is a good idea to include a pamphlet of their latest offering on every issue of free daily newspapers in Singapore. Basically it's an ad sleeve covering the paper.

Most of the time people simply pull it out and throw it into the bin. Which is OK in my opinion except that 1/2 an hour later, almost all the bins in the MRT (mass rapid transit) station gets filled to the brim and adverts are flying everywhere. And those marketing guys from that company doesn't seem to bother, or perhaps they are all so bloody rich and never use public transport anyway.

Before you mod my rant as offtopic, think of the essence of this post which is about advertising (what MS and hyperlinked company are doing) and it's implication on people and the environment.

P/S: I do not work for neither company, and all opinions expressed are my own.

Re:Courts (MS should know)

[gosand]

Is there any cheaper method to get screen time and articles in newspapers than getting sued over nonsensical issues?

Or monopolistic practices? Or railed on by the U.S. Department of Justice, or a group of U.S. States? When you have some of the deepest pockets around, I guess you don't really care. It would be the same as someone suing me for pocket lint.

Is this wierd??

[ianjk]

"STEP 3: Cancel your previous account
If you currently have an AOL account, the TrueSwitch service will be able to cancel your account for you -- just follow the simple instructions. "

MSN comes with a service that cancels your aol account for you... I wonder what else it can do?