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Monday, September 22, 2008

Microsoft Advertising Spirals On Downward

Now it seems that those "I'm A PC" ads? Created with Macs.

Don't even know where to start.

3 comments:

Thomas said...

Because what, they were supposed to only contract out to ad shops that use Windows for creating image assets? Who cares?

What a silly attempt at a controversy.

Josh said...

Like that would be hard if you're Microsoft?

On most ads I'd be inclined to agree, but when it's one long rant about how you can do anything in the world on PC's and an obvious bite of the thumb to Apple - it would be good to make sure you actually produce the ad on PC's.

In other words if this was the Jerry ads I wouldn't think much about it. It might be worth the guffaw of Adobe showing off the impressive Flash app MS Game Studios made for Halo 3 (as a slap to Silverlight).

But when the #1 software company has to remind everyone that people still use the #1 software company, but then don't make sure they're actually using the #1 software company - that's bad advertising.

I'm 100% positive if the tables were turned, the crowing would remain the same.

Thomas said...

They did it in Photoshop. If roughlydrafted is right--and let's be clear, as professional advocates everything they say should be taken with a serious grain of salt--and it was also mixed on a Mac, it was probably done in Pro Tools, which is also cross-platform. (How they know the audio was done on a Mac, I have no idea, unless they have DP or Logic project files--audio doesn't have EXIF.) In other words, yes, it was done on a Mac. No, there's absolutely no reason you couldn't have done it on a PC.

This would never happen for Apple, because their corporate culture is run by a control freak. I understand they've actually got a custom soundstage for shooting their ads. Of course they would use an all-Apple solution.

I don't think Microsoft cares. They're the company that issued G5s as the early 360 dev kits, after all. As a company, I just don't think they're as interested in micromanaging their ad team in that way. Maybe that's a weakness--I liked the Jerry ads a lot more. These new ads strike me as very corporate and safe--the kind of thing people'd EXPECT Microsoft to do. They're just meant to maintain marketshare, not change the brand in any real way.

But none of this is surprising. It's part of their corporate cultures and identities. Apple controls the whole widget, MS caters to a business ecosystem. That's why it's silly: it should have been evident from the start.