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Microsoft Wants to Project "Cool" Image
rocketjam writes "C-Net is reporting that Microsoft is working to get their products placed in popular TV shows like Fox's "24" and HBO's "The Wire" as part of a push from executive Jim Allchin called 'cool form factor'. Like MacDonald's recent hip-makeover marketing efforts, Allchin wants to engender a hip, consumer brand image for the company which is largely perceived as an enterprise software company. Microsoft would like to capture some of the cachet that Apple Computer has among the fashionable and Hollywood tech elite."
The newest 24 preview has Jack sitting infront of a 17" PowerBook, with a G5 in the background. They both look amazing. What would microsoft do? Have a WindowsXP box sitting on the desk, with him holding it up, looking at the camera and saying "For all you security needs, use windows" and promptly proceeds to blast a cap in it's ass.
Yet all we see it in is TechTV and the 7o'clock news due to the latest virus issue. :\
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
If they try, they'll just end up like an embarrassing dad - hip and trendy, age 45. Thinks he's the coolest dancer on the dancer floor...
Programming with a dose of satire: http://www.SoftwareReality.com
Apple have appeared, without payment or request, in thousands of productions. From 24 to Seinfeld, to just about any stock photography that has a laptop in it, it's Apple Apple Apple all the way. I think it's curious Microsoft need to -pay- to get their products in this same position.
:P
And as much as I'm a mac lover, it's amazing how LITTLE benefit it's done Apple. What's our market share now?
It's just trying to get the street cred it craves.
It's important to make sure it doesn't get it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make sure it doesn't. This message will self-destruct in 15 months.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Fucking Windows 98! Get Bill Gates in here! You told us Windows 98 would be faster, and more efficient, with better access to the Internet!
As Gates tries to defend Windows, the General blows his head off. I thought that was pretty cool.
It has to look cool, which, IMHO, Microsoft has not grasped yet. A large part of the appeal -- and probably a good reason why the directors of 24 allow it -- of Apple is the cool factor. The hardware is slick, the buttons are shiny, and it doesn't look like most other computers out there.
What product would microsoft have in its arsenal that could fill the above description?
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Neo: "Trinity, you hack in, I'll keep Agent Smith busy. How much time you need?"
(Wack! Wack! Pow!)
Trinity: (Looks at Micro$oft Windoze(TM) login prompt) "We're in."
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
With style-retarded heads like Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, they've got a good way to go. The reason that Apple has the image it does is STEVE JOBS. Face it, whether you like him or not (personally I do) he is a stylish man. Back in the 80s he always wore those black turtlenecks and trendy glasses. He KNOWS what style is. Unless someone want's to get the guys from Queer Eye to do a makeover on Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, the business image is going to be hard to break. Besides, I can predict what's going to happen anyway. They will try to add coolness to their image and then proclaim success to the investors after six months regardless of the true outcome. Eventually everyone will want to look like Microsoft products because of the buzz surrounding the new look. The buzz that was self-perpetuating. This will work because most business folks don't have the slightest idea what style really is. They think "roughing it" is wearing a pair of khakis and a polo shirt to work on Fridays.
Un-news
Since when was a massive omni-mega corp ever cool? They are currently the bully in the arena. Smaller companies that are more agile and willing to accept major risks will always come out on top as far as "cool factor" goes. That's the nature of the game. MS's reputation is all about ubiquity and uniformity - and image that they've crafted very carefully through the years.
Sadly, MS will always win out by ripping off a smaller company's ideas and making knock-offs. I don't know why they wouldn't be happy with that. Let the other guy take the risk, and if it works - steal the idea! Let the other guy be cool, then emulate him. It's been working quite well for them, so who cares?
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From the article: After some early success with shows like "24" last season...
Maybe last season but in the first series: 24's Good Guys Do Use Macs
While Bauer and most of the other agents in his unit used Macs, the traitor used a laptop made by Dell. The baddies, a group of renegade Serbs, also use Dell machines.
This reminds me of the "Windows ME Introduction Video" that showed several extremely happy people using "digital media" technology, "recovering from problems easily" (kid with hammer attacks keyboard), and experiencing the power of "home networking." I really love the part where Dad shoots a video of the wife and kid and sends it spinning around an animated globe to Grandma's computer. And despite all the marketing hype, all the non-geeks I know who have used WinME universally agree that it sucks.
Besides, most of the people I know who are clueless about computers hate computers, and nothing will ever change that. Not marketing, and not attempts at making software easier to use. And such people wouldn't even notice the latest toy from HP on their favorite TV show.
They may want to make there OS as stable as Apple or Linux before they try to advertise it all over the place in television shows. On numerous occassions I have seen M$ computers on TV at there trademark blue screen. This has happened on several shows including Howard Stern and CNN. I have also seen this on electronic billboards. M$ obviously needs to take a break from there marketing tactics and get back to programming, this is obvious as there is a constant threat of new vulnerabilities in there software due to the poorly laid out architecture.
All MS has to do is rewite some basic error messages and we go from...
This program has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down. Do you wish to generate an error report and send it to Microsoft?
to
Hey dude, Bill reckons you've been working so hard in Word that you deserve a break so we've closed it down for you. Go grab a diet soda (we've gotta watch that sugar rush!) or chill out by the water cooler for a while and then return refreshed to start all over again. We're so glad you've chosen to take a break we've even emailed Bill and told him you're not skipping on your personal time.
AT&ROFLMAO
Apple makes physical objects with a distinctive look. The product just has to appear for a second. Nobody has to interrupt the flow of dialogue to say anything about it.
What's Microsoft going to do? Ask them to show people booting up their PC so that the Windows logo takes over the screen and that musical sound plays?
Have cool twenty-somethings joke about how to get rid of that obnoxious Clippy?
This is just a dumb upper-management idea. Microsoft doesn't make the kind of products for which product placement works.
Furthermore, Apple's appeal to a certain group is directly connected to their willingness to make strong, emphatic design statements. You may hate the way a Mac looks or you may love it, but you can't be indifferent to it. Other PC makers may take tentative steps in making their boxes charcoal instead of beige, or making the front plastic bulge a bit instead of being perfectly flat, but they're not willing to be emphatic--and neither is Microsoft.
Contrast the Apple "switcher" ads--which I personally hated--with the bland, characterless attempt Microsoft made to do the same thing. You knew the Apple switchers were real people. And it came as no surprise to find that the Microsoft "switchers" were stock photographs.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Bill Gates: Mr. Simpson?
Homer: You don't look so rich...
Bill Gates: Don't let the haircut fool you, I am exceedingly wealthy.
Homer: [quietly] Get a load of the bowl-job, Marge!
Bill Gates: Your Internet ad was brought to my attention, but I can't figure out what, if
anything, Compuglobalhypermeganet does, so rather than risk competing with
you, I've decided simply to buy you out.
Homer: I reluctantly accept your proposal!
Bill Gates: Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!
[Gates' lackeys trash the room.]
Homer: Hey, what the hell's going on!
Bill Gates: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks! [insane laughter]
If it deserved it, it would have it already. Personally I don't see it working, for two reasons: 1. Mass-market by definition cannot be cool. Cool requires a degree of exclusivity. 2. Microsoft's philosophy is "pile em' high sell 'em cheap, and fix the bugs eventually". Again, this is the anti-thesis of cool. Basically MS lack the perfectionist drive. I'm not making either of these points to knock MS as a company - they're very succesful at what they do and make a ton of cash. It's just that what do is incompatible with being "cool". Edward
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
The butterfly isn't cool enough for you? Flying around without a jetpack isn't cool? Right. It's way freaking cool. They even use songs by Madonna and the Rolling Stones.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
You're slightly wrong here. They have the perfectionist drive in spades. It's just that they are trying to perfect making money, not perfect making product.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"It's just trying to get the street cred it craves. It's important to make sure it doesn't get it.
Thankfully, Microsoft's success in having become 'the establishment' will make it very hard for them to acquire street cred. That sort of perception tends to attach to rebels, free-thinkers and high performers, not monolithic institutions. While it's true that MS itself has shown breathtaking contempt for the law, using their software is not going to make you a rebel without a cause; it's going to make you a sheep without an alternative.
We all know what's going to happen now:
Yes, Longhorn will be renamed "Windows Extreme"
If they want to be more "hip" then they should improve the part of Windows that users see the most. The BSOD. They should make it animated with sound and some cool phrase , preferably from the list of Windows Haiku.
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The setup is that a besuited guy wanders in on a what is presumably the IT department. The IT department looks like the commercial director has taken the most boring people on the talent agency's books and told the costume and make up people "think bland". They are all dancing extremely awkwardly and drinking some unidentified liquid (the way these people are acting, it sure ain't alcohol) out of blue plastic cups.
The guy asks what's the party, at which point the head IT guy explains how they had magically consolidated the Active Directory groups from 70 to 4 thus allowing them to roll out new apps to the sales force in minutes (or some such hooey). The suit looks nonplussed, until Head IT Guy explains that this will save the company millions of dollars. The ad closes with the suit leading the IT department in a line dance, which they manage to make look just as awkward and dorky.
I realise the ad probably has to be designed to it can be shown everywhere from Salt Lake City to Singapore, but, jeez, if you want to make your brand cool try not to associate it with complete dorks... :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
No. Brute force and ignorance, every time. "We want a cool image; find out how much that'll cost, and buy it."
Unfortunately, so far, it's a policy that's mostly worked. And if they spend enough in the right places, I fear it'll work again. What does that say about society?
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IBM wanted people to think OS/2 was "cool", so the company began calling it "Warp", which to the people at the time who were likely to be old enough and powerful enough to make big purchases meant "bend out of shape in such a way as to possibly render useless".
Well, I'm here to report that it worked. IBM did in fact succeed in associating the word "cool" with OS/2. IBM lost a "cool" billion dollars on OS/2. In the years immediately following, IBM lost another "cool" billion dollars. That's positively frigid.
OS/2 is still "cool" in the sense that, because it is dead, it is no longer warm.
So, that's a story about a big company trying to be cool.
I can't beleive you're saying Office and Windows, with their 80% profit margin, are sold "cheap".
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Wintel laptops are used as Trojan Horses filled with C4. (no really!)
I've seen a treatment of the final episode of the show, funding is cut and a new manager is brought in who attempts to "modernize" and "standardize" the MI-5 by "upgrading" to Windows boxes.
I will not reveal the ending, but let's just say its not pretty.
I like microcars
Following this line of reasoning, MS needs product placement on The Soprano's, and maybe a story line about how Tony wants to expand from cartage into software license enforement, but is scared off by the aggressive tactics of the Business Software Alliance.
You've hit the nail on the head. MS wants to be every image at some point or another. Big Reliable Bank Partner. No wait... SupaDope Xbox playa. No wait... Your Friendly Neighbourhood PC weenie. No wait....
They can't have it all ways. As someone pointed out above, while Microsoft can rent cool, they can never, ever be cool. Its just not the way it works.
Like trying to pick your own nickname. Apple became cool years ago and that's what they are still. MS, much more powerful financially, cannot claim underdog status, and no one in their right mind can associate themselves with a global behemoth like that.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Here is Apple's info about product placement.
The article is kind of dated, but the fundamentals still hold true today.
Now it's Cool Screen of Death!
Like MacDonald's recent hip-makeover marketing efforts
Yeah, but I really despise the new McDonald's 'hip' commercials! If Microsoft wants to do the same thing, I'll probably wind up hating...
oh wait, nevermind
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You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that MS avoids sqaushing bugs due to costs. I don't believe this is the case. They are willing to live with bugs because they do not directly affect their bottom line.
/.ers see MS's problem as one of its commercial nature and monopolistic ambitions to dominate the world etc. While I agree with those criticisms, the essential nature of their problem from my POV as a potential customer is this features-not-bug-fixes philosophy of theirs. From a strictly profit-making, shareholder-value POV, I can see their point, but from an end-user perspective it does make me despise them and their slimy make-a-fast-buck used car salesman ethics.
If MS decides to increase their budget for a particular application, it will be to add features. Features tend to add even more bugs (and bloat), but they are great for marketing and hence sales. Features directly add value. Bugfixes do not. People (naively) expect their software to work as advertised. Customers don't want to have to pay extra for the company to fix something that was never supposed to have been broken.
Commercial customers with tech-savvy sys-admins can be a problem here. This is the only reason that MS ever developed the NT series of OSes. At least there MS paid at least some attention to reliability and bugfixes. But the point is that it was only because they felt they had no choice. Below a certain level of reliability Linux/Unix would just be too tempting an alternative for this market segment.
I realize that many
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.