This is a continuation, in a way, of my previous post entitled “But Microsoft doesn’t make PCs….”
Mac has responded beautifully to Microsoft’s latest condescending ad campaign where they pay folks to buy a PC and as these folks browse for the appropriate computer, at a big box store, they invariably have a dismissive comment to make about the Mac — the lonely single Macbook in the entire store it seems. They say things like, “Macs seem more about design than anything else.”
You’ve seen the new Crispin, Porter + Bogusky campaign for Microsoft, first the Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld roadshow followed by the supposed next phase of the plan, the cavalcade of real people and celebrities claiming to be “a PC.”
This first came to my attention with the cover of Fast Company’s June 2008 issue that pretty clearly asks if CPB’s Alex Bogusky can make Microsoft cool. While the article itself quotes Andrew Keller, one of CPB’s co-executive creative directors saying “To try to be cool is to not be cool,” the resulting campaign does just that.
“Television will kill the movies!” That’s what Hollywood was afraid of in the 50s. That’s when wide screen “epic” film formats were developed and movies like Cleopatra and Ben Hur came to represent the movies. The idea was that filmmakers had to come up with something that would clearly draw audiences away from television otherwise no one would ever again leave the comfort of their homes.
