It seems to me that the world's biggest company just isn't very good in the advertising department. I am of course referring to Microsoft. They've had a whole bunch of advertising going on and the whole lot has totally failed. In my opinion at least.
This post will be dedicated to discussing such failures.
Life Without Walls
Admittedly, this particular advertising campaign took place a year ago, but nevertheless, it still left a negative mark on Microsoft's reputation. 'Life Without Walls' became a temporary motton applying to Windows Vista, supposedly describing the lack of limitations imposed upon users in terms of applications, features, and overall power within their operating system of choice. Sadly, all of this was totally blown out of the water as more and more PC users complained of Vista's problems.
Microsoft's haughtily boastful attitude a la limitless features became invalid just days subsequent to the release of Windows 7. Any PC user who've experienced both Vista and 7 will tell you that 7 has less features than Vista. Some clever software engineer probably realized that a few good features makes for a better approach than reels of pointless ones. However, Microsoft has automatically alternated feature-count theologies, thus making their motto illogical, ironically.
Even while the motto was around it was pretty useless. No sooner had the adverts appeared than forums across the world wide web had filled to the brim with quips about installing Windows being an impossibility when you've got no walls to install them into. More serious posters pointed out that anything closed source couldn't offer limitless possibilities, and that Microsoft was taking advantage of the general public's lack of technical expertise. However reliable can you get...
The Wow Starts Now
There's not a lot of people who remember the advertising campaign which took place when Vista first hit the shelves back in 2007. It wasn't large-scale and was more or less confined to computer stores which stocked Vista-ready laptops. 'The Wow Starts Now' was the motto. It showed a woman standing against a white background explaining why Vista is the revolution we've all been waiting for.
Unfortunately...
Microsoft said the same think about XP, ME, 2000, 98, 95, and practically every other operating system they've ever developed and released into the wild. A bit of a broken record really. Windows Vista may have been a big step towards a revolutionary operating system but there's no way it was the revolution. Windows 7 maybe, but not it's predecessor. 'The Wow Starts Now' was totally irrelevant, as the flood of complaints soon showed.
Next Time...
Part two will be about the present state of Microsoft's advertising. We'll discuss the commercial which got banned for pure distastefulness and how Internet Explorer 8 needs more than 8 seconds to show how bad it it. See you soon!
3 comments:
Yeah, Microsoft should leave advertising to companies like HP for their products running Microsoft's software.
Or, just stop advertising! Why do they need to bother advertising Windows when everyone knows about it?
Fair enough point. I guess with 90% shares in the market every one knows Windows.
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