I’m Microsoft; And I Don’t Have a Clue

Spot on mate.

Wait…say that again. The actors represent…machines?

I don’t get it.

I always thought of Hodgman and Long as also rep­re­sent­ing man­age­ment and cre­ative. One’s mak­ing fool­ish deci­sions based on crap advice, the other’s just try­ing to get some work done. Am I pro­ject­ing too much?

@bkhar­mony: I hope, with the hope of a thou­sand hope­ful peo­ple hop­ing to see Bob Hope per­form in Hope, Arkansas that you’re being sar­cas­tic. If not, then all I can say is, “watch the bloody commercials.”

@Moeskido: Certainly there’s more than one layer to the Apple adver­tise­ments. It’s typ­i­cal of Microsoft that they see only one, wafer thin, slice of the many lay­ered nar­ra­tive that is “I’m a Mac & I’m a PC” and go after it like a Balmer in a china shop.

Actually, I’d be more likely to watch Bill and Jerry going at it than another stu­pid Microsoft commercial

@Angry Drunk: Bob Hope in Hope, Arkansas????

Now I REALLY don’t get it!

(Yes, I was attempt­ing to deploy a sar­casm depth charge.)

It doesn’t mat­ter whether M$ gets the metaphor or not, they don’t think Windows users do, which goes to show their opin­ion of their cus­tomers. (Problem is, judg­ing by the rabid, insane fury that the Mac vs. PC ads engen­der in the PC crowd, they’re right.)

The telling prob­lem of this cam­paign, includ­ing the prematurely-ended “teaser” shorts, is that Microsoft is avoid­ing talk­ing about the one thing it actu­ally pro­duces: software.

In the first series, the com­pany was try­ing to sell Bill Gates as a lik­able, if some­what gawky, per­son. In the sec­ond series, they are try­ing to sell the con­cept that using a PC is OK. Nowhere is men­tioned the company’s flag­ship prod­ucts, and peo­ple are going to pick up on that.

The sub­text of a TCD ad is, “You can get more done on a Mac; here’s an exam­ple.” Good: 90% of the pop­u­la­tion may not be aware of that. The sub­text of the CP+B ad is, “Lots of peo­ple (some mar­gin­ally famous) use PCs every day.” Do peo­ple really need to know that? Do peo­ple really want to be reminded of that? Are they try­ing to say that mis­ery loves company?

What I got from the ad was that Microsoft is really, really scared. Also, that semi-famous and totally obscure alilke are all ready to smile for the cam­era and take their money as Ballmer and com­pany slide down the rusty razor blade of obsolescence.

For a fee, I’d be will­ing to adver­tise for Microsoft. I’ll even look sin­cere if the price is right. Lunch first, then ethics.

As if the raw unadul­ter­ated com­mer­cial prod­uct itself isn’t enough to assure you that Redmond is in the tech­no­log­i­cal toi­let with the world poised to push the chrome lever – it comes for­ti­fied with irony. The ad was made with a Mac.

I don’t remem­ber where I read that, but I laughed out loud.

Yeah, I won’t link to where I read it, since it’s a site that’s vio­lently dis­ap­proved of here, but first they for­got to strip out the meta­data show­ing how the com­mer­cials were made before post­ing them online, then as soon as some­body noticed, stripped it out, some­how qua­dru­pling the size of the files in the process, and now they’re exhibit­ing a still from the first com­mer­cial with Windows meta­data crudely Photoshopped onto it, to show it was all a lie.

The sur­prise here is not that their ad agency uses Macs (they prob­a­bly all do,) but the absent-mindedness of not hid­ing that in the first place, the knee-jerk cover-up, and now the dis­hon­esty of rewrit­ing his­tory. M$ in action!

This is what hap­pens when a com­pany becomes too large to man­age effi­ciently. Every busi­ness deci­sion becomes com­pro­mised by mind­less group­think or inter-division com­pe­ti­tion. Every pro­ce­dure becomes stan­dard­ized. And the Legal Department grows, cov­er­ing ass for all of the bad group decision-making.

I love the new Microsoft ad. It’s the best thing they could do to help Apple sales. I’m not sure Apple needed help, but it’s lovely that Microsoft are so obliging.

My think­ing goes: Everyone uses a PC. So using some­thing else is spe­cial. A Mac is some­thing else, ergo using a Mac is special.

I bet Apple execs were danc­ing in the office when they first saw the ad. Maybe Apple will re-run the “Think Different” ads as a coun­ter­point. Microsoft sets the pins up, and Apple knocks them down.

And to end on Deepak Chopra trot­ting out a line almost straight from the Simpsons… Genius!

Deepak Chopra: “I am a PC and I am a human being. Not a human doing. Not a human think­ing. A human being.”

Brad Goodman: “Brad Goodman: And soon you’re not a human being, you’re a human doing. Then what comes next?“ Bart: “A human going!”

Best ad from Microsoft ever. Shame it doesn’t say any­thing what­so­ever about Microsoft.

@Rip Ragged: “Lunch first, then ethics”. Top! I will use that in the next board meet­ing. Of course I will make out I thought of it, and sue any­one who claims prior art — me first, you’re lunch.

@Gatesbasher: For microsoft to be capa­ble of dou­be­think (that’s your Orwellian allu­sion, right?) they’d have to think in the first place. Clearly they are guilty of zero­think. DoublePlusCrap, as always (as an aside, it’s a shame Orwell missed out on intercapping).

@GaryPatterson: What Deepak really said was “I’m a human being, just here man (takes another hit, gig­gles a bit), I’m not a human, like, doing any­thing. Or, like, think­ing, fuck that. I’m just being, man.”