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Mainstream Press "Cringes" At Win7 Launch Parties
lurking_giant writes "Well, Microsoft has done it again with the YouTube Windows 7 launch party video that is turning the stomachs of even the mainstream press with its clueless and campy marketing style. A Washington Post reader was quoted as saying 'If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool.'" Even the Guardian's resident die-hard Apple hater calls it "the most nauseating advert in history."
Most advertisements only evoke one or two emotions. This one manages to make me feel despair, disgust, fear, and rage, all at the same time.
They've truly taken it to the next level.
...are not generating any free press for Microsoft.
T=5:43: Can you believe that Microsoft put the launch of Windows 7 in our hands? Couldn't have said it better myself. I love the token nerd, attractive woman, old-but-hip person, and black guy. It's like they hired marketing undergraduates to design the video.
They think they're on solid ground to criticize the marketing of a company that actually made money last year? Let me know the the newspapers entice their readership back to levels that are slightly above the number of people who'll read my post.
Either Microsoft is planning on selling Windows 7 like tuppaware or what I just watched was the introduction to a very bad porno.
Just think of how many different interests can be satisfied with this cast.
Uuuuuuuuuuuhuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh... drool, pass out. No wonder adding comments has been disabled for the video. This reminds me of anti-smoking ads that are so lame and stupid (usually directed at teens) that they make you want to smoke.
I think its more Microsoft attempting to be similar to Apple. But the problem is they are failing because PCs are just too common. Its not a "choice" to use MS software, its just there by default. And its a pain for the average user. Either they spend a lot of $$$ getting an easy to use Mac or save money and get a PC with problems. Thats just how the average person sees things.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
well... start the countdown: implosion in 10,9,8,7...
this is easily the worst promotion I have ever seen. Microsoft, please for the love of god fire your ad agency. There is 'incompetent', and then there's this extra-special, groundbreaking new plateau of retarded-ness.
I didn't think it was possible to kill Windows 7 with a single video -- BUT IT JUST HAPPENED.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
The video is perfect. The video correctly represent Windows 7 and its design philosophy. And it evokes the same feelings in me that using Windows does.
Congratulations!
I couldn't get the word 'scientology' out of my head when watching this
I was thinking "Amway"
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
But as a matter of philosophy, Microsoft boldly claims "You will never need a shell" and a lot of people rejoice.
Yes, but then those of us who want a shell get... the freaking MS-DOS Command Prompt. Quite possibly the worst shell interface known to mankind. It's so bad that its suckiness has to be deliberate, Microsoft's way of "encouraging" people to think that clicking on icons is the only reasonable way to use a computer.
(yeah, I know there are alternatives. My point is that they shouldn't be "alternatives", something decent should be the default by now. It's 2009, not 1981, for God's sake)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
One thing that strikes me about my mac is that it doesn't treat me like an enormous retard. I don't have stupid little dogs popping up to "find" files for me, I don't have to click through 5 warnings about how what I'm about to do will end the world when I try to navigate out of my home directory, and the whole experience isn't dumbed down to the level of a 2 year old.
Yes, I know you can turn all that shit off in windows, but why do I have to? Every time I use a windows computer it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
People are asking, "How could Microsoft, with all its wealth and power, produce such a stupid series of ads?"
Because they're smarter than you?
--Because they have enough wealth and power to hire one of the smartest public relations firms on the planet. Waggener Edstrom is the same firm in charge of the Fox Channels. If there's any one thing they know how to do, it's identify a market and then lock down that market forever and ever and sell them whatever the hell 'truth' they feel like selling.
Here's a small clip from a page I found after about 10 seconds of Google searching. . .
Do they sound stupid now?
My guess is that they're doing three things with this ad. . .
1. They're trying to tap into a universal feeling of awkwardness that everybody feels when recalling a "PCP" party. (Parents, Chips and Pop). They're doing this because awkward, painful feelings open up memory centers. Information given during a period of high anxiety gets locked into place in the human mind. This is a well-known and often-used ploy in mind control. The information being served up in these ads is NOT how to run your software or all the features offered by their OS, but that "WINDOWS 7 EXISTS AND IT IS UBIQUITOUS AND YOU, AS A PACK ANIMAL HAD BETTER GET WITH THE PROGRAM OR RISK EXPULSION FROM THE HERD!!!!"
2. Trying to tap into the feeling of safety and love which people also feel when they think of their parents and the silly birthday parties thrown for them when they were little. Why? Because an OS is the bedrock upon which you ground your entire computer existence, --the same way your parents provided the bedrock for your adult behavior sets. You might think your parents were stupid and annoying, and you probably want to deny it, but the truth of the matter is that most people grow up to become their parents.
3. Go viral. --Using such deliberate tactics designed to rope in the lower echelon of geeks, such as stove clocks which are obviously bouncing around 'wrong' in exactly the kind of way geeks like to point out and be "Right" about. Fuck, fuck, FUCK! There's a whole sick cultural system through which people who like computer technology were warped into that "Look! I'm RIGHT!" head-space, and you had better believe that clock "error" was on purpose so as to lock them in. Low-hanging fruit.
So, please, for goodness sake, try to think outside of the bloody box when approaching the toxic waste which is advertising! If you fall for this kind of stupid shit, then you're nothing but slaves who deserve to be used and abused, and you WILL be.
Sorry for the harsh language, but this is important.
-FL