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A Decade of Dreadful Microsoft Ads

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the john-hodgman-is-giggling dept.

Barence writes "PC Pro has rounded up the most howlingly awful examples of ads churned out by Microsoft over the past decade. The selection includes the cringe-worthy Gates & Seinfeld ads — where Gates looks like he’s delivering his lines with the help of a cattle prod — to the terrible Windows 7 party ads (an 'F1 key for social inadequates,' according to PC Pro), to the one that got away: an excellent in-house training video produced by The Office's Ricky Gervais."

2 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft's Most Effective Ads by Greg+Hullender · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The Mac vs. PC ads that Apple runs have benefited Microsoft enormously because they've forced it to focus on serious quality problems that management had successfully ignored for years on the grounds that "nobody cares about that." It's hard to argue that nobody cares when someone is rubbing it in your face on a daily basis. When I was at Microsoft (over 14 years), nothing was more frustrating than reporting an inexcusable quality problem and having it dismissed on the grounds that "it's been in the last several releases, so it doesn't need to be fixed."

    When I play with Windows 7 and the new Office Beta, I see dozens of my pet peeves fixed, and I'll give a lot of credit to those Mac vs. PC ads. The most effective ads for Microsoft -- ever!

    --Greg (In some sense of "for" of course) :-)

  2. Microsoft succeeds because of "Marketing" by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the early days of Linux (and still somewhat not, though less common) a common thread here on Slashdot was that Microsoft succeeded because of 'marketing'. What about dinosaurs with neckties made you want to buy Office? Or some girl projectile vomiting made you think IE was a good browser?

    Microsoft succeeded by knowing that network effects are important, and making sure everyone who could possibly run their software had it, thereby locking them in for the long term. Once they had that dominance, then they could force people to do things illegally. For those that simply say 'monopoly' and do no other analysis, remember in the early days Microsoft was just one of a few companies, and only once network effects started rolling in did they achieve dominance where they could dictate.

    Linux did itself no favors by screaming 'marketing' every time there was a comparison against Windows when they could have thought how to get those network effects and push out on the desktop somewhat.