Microsoft and Advertising
I have found it absolutely amazing that Microsoft and all it’s uber-fan-boys have found the Apple “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads so objectionable. People either seem to love them or hate them, hell, Bill Gates doesn’t even “get” them. Personally I find most, if not all, of them fairly accurate and hilarious. Have you seen the one with the secret-service-looking guy standing with the “PC” making him deny or allow every action…”Your slowly coming to a sad realization, deny or allow”…that gets me every time (see my note below).
The amazing part of it all is that, regardless of how accurate the ads are or are not, Microsoft has no room to talk when questioning the marketing tactics of anyone else. One only needs to look at Microsoft’s enormous advertising budget and history of questionable advertising to realize that making a stink out of Apple’s ads is a little ridiculous.
Microsoft will spend approximately $500 million on advertising the release of Windows Vista alone! It also spent over $200 million to advertise XP, which in turn was twice as much as they spent to advertise Windows 95. As this blog post by Darren Barefoot points out this seems like a lot of money to shell out for a product that a majority of computer users will be forced to buy at some point anyway…because heaven forbid we be able to choose not to buy Windows when we buy a new PC. He also aptly points out that the Vista’s advertising budget is larger than the GDP of 17 countries. I can tell you this though…spending more on advertising doesn’t actually make your product any better.
Talking about ethics or “truth” in advertising…what about all of those ads from Microsoft’s famous “Get the Facts” ads? Most of the research behind the ads are questionable at best and most of it has been Microsoft sponsored. On top of that (like most marketing) they conveniently manipulate the results to make it look like Windows has some huge advantage over some specific Linux configuration, usually by twisting the numbers or leaving key information out. My favorite is the one where they compare Windows on an x86 server to an IBM mainframe running just one instance of Linux.
Then there was the bribing bloggers debacle and hiring people to edit Wikipedia entries to favor Microsoft’s view points and paying people to troll forums to talk down alternatives and hype Microsoft products. I am not saying that other companies haven’t done such things but Microsoft definitely has no room to talk.
It makes me wonder why so many of are making such a big deal over the Apple ads? Could it be that the ads are hitting a nerve with fanboys who are in denial and finally realizing Windows Vista really isn’t all that spectacular despite, literally, years of hype. In the end…I think they all need to just relax anyway and stop taking it so serious. Maybe Apple needs to come out with a “Get the Facts” campaign of their own. I can just see it now…”OS X on a Mac Mini costs 55% less to operate than Vista on a dual processor, dual core, on a high-end Voodoo PC in terms of ease of use.”
NOTE: This was extra humorous to me due to the fact that just days before this ad aired for the first time I assisted a friend of mine in installing Vista on his relatively new laptop. A few days later I asked my friend what he thought of Vista. His exact response could have been precisely expressed by this Mac ad. He said…”It’s okay, it really annoys me that I have to click through all these damn security dialogs all of the time.” The very next day this commercial aired and floored me.
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