A Decade of Dreadful Microsoft Ads

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."

Comments

Re:Is that Windows 1.0 commercial real?

[truthsearch]

But wait, there's more! If you think that one looks like a parody check out this classic DOS 5 upgrade commercial.

And the Linux ads?

[johnsie]

They were pretty bad too... The commercial with the little kid being brainwashed by Linux fanboys? The Obvious advertisng winners of the 00's were clearly Apple. They got the memorable TV ads and also got the word of mouth thing right. Linux and Micrsoft were the epic failures of the last decade, more so toward the end of the decade.

Missed some bad Microsoft ads

[dwheeler]

They missed some hideously-bad ads for Microsoft.

My favorite "bad Microsoft ad" is a 2000 TV ad, which uses the musical theme of "Confutatis Maledictis" from Mozart's Requiem. The screen says "Where do you want to go today?" while the chorus sings "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis" ("The damned and accursed are convicted to the flames of Hell").

There's also a 2009 ad featuring a vomiting woman.

Microsoft's Most Effective Ads

[Greg Hullender]

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) :-)

The Decade of Microsoft

[Slash.Poop]

Can anyone really deny this was the decade of Microsoft?

Personal
XP released in 2001, is still going strong and will be for quite some time.
7 released in 2009, is going strong and has received great reviews.

Professional
Server 2003 released in 2003, is still going strong and will be for quite some time.
Server 2008 released in 2008, is going strong and has received great reviews.

There was the Vista speed bump but overall this was without a doubt a Microsoft decade.

Re:Is that Windows 1.0 commercial real?

[Greg Hullender]

No, it was a spoof done to entertain people at the annual company meeting. It was popular (for years) to make spoof ads for us as well as spoofs of ads by competitors. My favorite was a spoof on the IBM software for the Olympics, in a year when IBM made a big deal about how their software was being used to tally the scores, but there were serious problems (possibly not really IBM's fault) anyway. The spoof reported that some event (say the pole vault) was won by a 7-foot-tall dwarf from Mesopotamia. (Or something equally outlandish.)

Once it was possible for these things to leak onto the Internet, I think they quit doing them.

--Greg

Microsoft succeeds because of "Marketing"

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

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.

Re:Microsoft succeeds because of "Marketing"

[cyber-vandal]

As long as Linux can't run the majority of the required software and devices it won't matter how good or bad its marketing is.

Re:Is that Windows 1.0 commercial real?

[eln]

That was awesome! I want to go out and buy MS-DOS 5 Upgrade right now!

Re:It's OK when it's You

[Lumpy]

um bullshit.

90% of all OSX software installs to the applications directory and DO NOT REQUIRE admin password for install.

the only apps that need admin acces are ones that try to install services or files to the system folder.

Did you even use a mac or are you making this stuff up? Because in the last 5 years of OSX use at home and work I have NEVER ran into what you are talking about except for highly system invasive apps.