Pink PCs and Baseball Boys: These Microsoft Ads Are Growing on Me (But I Am Still a Mac!)
by Kara Swisher
Posted on April 10, 2009 at 2:27 AM PT
OK, the Lauren commercial was a little too cute for its own good, and BoomTown has no interest in Giampaulo’s “really big hands.”
But the latest installment of Microsoft’s real-people advertising Internet and television ad campaign, called “Laptop Hunters”–this time a mother and son named Lisa and Jackson looking to score a computer–is pretty funny and sweet.
Deftly lacing in baseball and playing to cute but tired clichés (did you hear–boys don’t like the color pink!), the main theme of heft value over too-thin hipness is really starting to kick in: That a person can get more computer for the money by buying a PC over a Mac.
Again, this segment slyly insults Apple (AAPL) as overpriced and undersized–”It’s a little too small,” says Jackson, while Lisa calls the Macs “pretty.”
The pair finally walk out of the store with a Sony (SNE) Vaio.
While I cannot blame Microsoft (MSFT) for sticking to the Apple-Is-for-Value-Ignorant-Elites meme, I still wish that the messaging would move on from price to more important things such as how the software and hardware perform together.
Cuz, frankly, I like pretty.
Here are Lisa and Jackson, as well the Lauren and Giampaulo, below:
Comments
Microsoft continues this nonsense that’s frankly just a bit pathetic. They certainly can’t push Vista. And the fact they have already announced a plan to allow people to downgrade Windows 7 to Vista (?) and to XP (but only the most expensive versions of Windows 7 are eligible) proves they can’t bring themselves to talk about how great their OS is any more because nobody takes them seriously when they do.
So what do they have to work with? Price. “Hey, these computers are cheap!” I’m sure the manufacturers love being portrayed as cheap. Let’s make it even harder to convince people to pay more for their computers than what their razor-thin profit margins are bringing in.
I can see Tata pushing their little $2,500 car vs the competition. “You might not survive a crash in our car, but it’s cheap!”
Or how about, “Our health insurance doesn’t cover most of what might kill you, but we’re cheap!”
Posted by Eric Welch at April 10th, 2009 at 3:33 pmI WILLINGLY pay big bucks for NOT MICROSOFT!
JUST SAY NO to steaming piles of cheap black plastic POS!!!
Your viruses are FREE!!
The money you save can help pay your TRAILER RENT.
Posted by David Owens at April 11th, 2009 at 2:23 pm