Table via.
“We’re likely to fight very hard,” [Google CEO Eric Schmidt] said. “It’s a very strategic acquisition for Google.”
I guess the table provides an indication of just how hard Google will “fight”.
Tag Archives: Ads
Gawker on the Six Delusions of Google’s Arrogant Leaders
But the CEO’s remarks are just the latest in a series of prominent self-righteous statements from Googlers. There have been plenty of similar cases just in the past couple of months alone. It’s worth cataloging them, given Google’s deep relationship with its millions of users, and given that the Mountain View internet company doesn’t seem to be getting any more humble.
via gawker.com
While so many are distracted by Google’s shiny “free” objects, it’s good that others keep an eye on what’s going on there.
Paul Thurrott: Microsoft Ads Are Goodness and Light, Apple Ads Are Evil
Paul Thurrott will never get over Apple’s great Get a Mac ad campaign. His latest article takes a shot at them while pretending Microsoft somehow got their own ads right.
About a year ago, Microsoft finally began fighting back against the snarky Apple “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads…
That would be the highly praised, very successful, brilliantly executed, well-written and multiple award-winning ads. Carry on.
with a series of its own advertisements which highlighted the diversity of the PC market.
Simply dubbed “I’m a PC,” the advertising campaign is still a huge hit, and virtually everyone who sees these ads is taken by how nice they are.
They were never a “hit”. They were mostly ridiculed for missing the fact that the characters in Apple’s ads are a personified “Mac” and “PC”, not actual people labeling themselves one or the other. Poor Microsoft. It’s hard to fight back against that which you don’t understand.
Unlike Apple’s sarcastic, borderline libelous advertising
“Borderline libelous” being exactly the same as “not libelous”. It’s the use of weasel words by Thurrott to appear to call Apple out for doing something they’re not doing.
Now with Windows 7 rising like a phoenix over the horizon…
A rare moment of honestly by Thurrott. He admits Vista burned Microsoft to ashes.
Microsoft is back with a new set of ads, this time based around its next OS. As with its previous ads, the Windows 7 ads are a welcome shot of positive vibes.
He points to the two new ads with 4-year-old Kylie (she’s probably 5 by now). If you haven’t seen them, look here and here.
They’re cute, funny, and relevant.
Cute? Definitely. Kylie is adorable. Funny? Only in that Microsoft thinks we should take OS advice from a kindergartner. Relevant? To what? Certainly not an OS comparison.
The Kylie ads ultimately use pull quotes from various reviews to sell Windows 7. You know, just like movie ads use selective pull quotes from movie reviewers. Problem is, when you actually see the flick you find out it stinks.
And they once again make Apple, and its own ads, look silly by comparison.
Hardly. Microsoft did two things wrong. First, using a child to sell technology is stupid. I’ve written before about Microsoft resorting to using children — who can’t possibly know any better — to hawk their wares. Now they’re at it again, apparently because without Kylie they’ve got nothing. But they’re not selling Kylie, they’re selling Windows 7, which Kylie doesn’t know from the Fisher Price OS.
And for all Thurrott’s claims of “snarky” and “borderline libelous”, where’s his rant about how no kindergartner in existence is searching the Internet for Windows 7 reviews and making slideshows out of pull quotes from those reviews?
Apple uses intelligent writing, wit, and sarcasm, delivered by adults, while focusing on the differences between the two platforms. Microsoft uses bunnies, flowers, unicorns, and a child to spew quotes containing words she can’t pronounce, much less understand. Maybe Microsoft thinks the use of a child’s ignorance is just what they need, but I know how I prefer my technology sold.
Did Apple Ask Microsoft To Pull Laptop Hunter Ads?
Yes, according to Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer speaking at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. During his speech he recounted a call he claimed to be from Apple Legal. According to the transcript:
And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something.
Is Turner telling the truth about this? I can’t say for sure, but it’s instructive to note that in the same transcript he says this about the Laptop Hunter ads (emphasis mine).
“Oh, I’m looking to spend less than $1,000.” Well we’ll give you $1,000. Go in and look and see what you can buy. And they come out and they just show them. Those are completely unscripted commercials.
Turner’s not being very truthful there. At the very least, it’s bending the truth to such an extent one must violate the laws of physics to pull it off. Unscripted? Please. Aside from certain events being staged, there’s also the kind of dialog that people are just not using unless prompted.
The latest example of this kind of dialog is in the most recent ad where, when showing a silver HP laptop (silver, to help it look like a unibody MacBook), the man talks about how sturdy it looks. No one usually talked about how “sturdy” a laptop felt until Apple began hacking them out of aluminum blocks. Apple’s been getting raves for the unibody durability, so now one of Microsoft’s laptop hunters coincidentally mentions the same thing about a cheap plastic laptop? Right.
I believe that when Microsoft picks a target price of less than $1,000 they’re on solid ground eliminating the Mac from contention. However, the rest of the supposedly “unscripted” dialog is bogus.
So did Apple Legal really call and request the ads be pulled, or is Turner bending the truth again? It sounds farfetched primarily because if Apple really felt they had a case for the ads to be pulled, they’d take action in writing. A written request, maybe even a Cease and Desist letter, would be more the style of Apple’s (or any large company’s) legal team. It just doesn’t seem like something they’d handle via a phone call to the COO.
TAB – Microsoft Finally Found a Group They Can Impress
Joe Wilcox has an article on Microsoft Watch about Microsoft’s new ads with kids. The series is called The Rookies, and there’s a second spot up.
Joe is less impressed with the second spot than the first, but goes on to explain how these ads have potential, Microsoft needs more of them (I’m sure more are coming), the kid should get an ‘A’ on the project, etc.
That’s all nice, but it misses an awkward thing about this whole series…
The Small Wave. 