[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Especially their newest one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iHtymB-lQIc

Pot calling the kettle black? Seriously, what right does Apple have to say Microsoft spends too much on advertising?

Typical Microsoft commercial: "Look at all these people, companies and groups who succeed with Microsoft Windows"
Apple's Rebuttal: LOL LOOK AT ALL THAT MONEY YOU SPEND! MINE USES PICTURES LOL!

John Gruber perhaps said it best: (n.b.: Gruber's quite loose with his language elsewhere on the site)

So for years now Microsoft has been running vapid, meaningless campaigns such as “people_ready”. Here’s the text from a print ad they ran in May 2006, which I wrote about here:

In a people-ready business, people make it happen. People, ready with software. When you give your people tools that connect, inform, and empower them, they’re ready. Ready to collaborate with partners, suppliers, and customers. Ready to streamline the supply chain, beat impossible deadlines, and develop ideas that can sway the course of industry. Ready to build a successful business: a people-ready business. Microsoft. Software for the people-ready business. To learn more, visit microsoft.com/peopleready

This ad says nothing, but pretends to say something.


Which brings us to the two TV spots Microsoft debuted this month, featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. The first, shoe shopping. The second, less a commercial than a 4.5-minute short film, shows Gates and Seinfeld moving in with a typical family in an attempt to reconnect with, well, typical people.


As entertainment, the spots are good. Both are well-shot, well-cut, well-acted works of cinema. And they’re a radical departure for Microsoft insofar as they completely dropped the meaningless corporate doublespeak that’s been the hallmark of their advertising for the last decade.


But they “worked” only insofar as they said nothing and dropped the pretense of saying something. The spots said nothing and reveled in the nothingness.


Just well-made nothing. A couple of million bucks just burned up in well-produced style.

Besides, I think you might be missing the point Apple's trying to convey: their product works, Microsoft's doesn't, and now Microsoft's trying to fight back with ads instead of a working product.


Of course, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.