Nobody Will Buy a Warm and Fuzzy Bill Gates

By toadeater
in Back Page News

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Grand Master

+Mystic MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

I'm going to say it again because it appears that when I said this earlier it was lost on most people. This ad was the first of a series to get people's attention, to get them TALKING. They have people's attention (good or bad) now and how where and what they show from now make people listen.

Grand Master

carmatic

Posted
Posted
I'm going to say it again because it appears that when I said this earlier it was lost on most people. This ad was the first of a series to get people's attention, to get them TALKING. They have people's attention (good or bad) now and how where and what they show from now make people listen.

what if it was so bad that it made people want to switch to a different channel at the next sight of bill gates on their tv... but then again it might have some negative psychology going on, like some of that 'so bad its good' stuff...

Grand Master

BGM

Posted
Posted

Brilliant ad,

its doing its job (getting people to discuss it), a change from past microsoft ads, and its funny!

In a similar vein to the sony ads that people don't 'get', I think it's great!

Adverts that just read, buy this product, only ?x.99 etc are for infomercials and should stay there, this is clever and funny and I hope to see more!:DD

Edit: and yes, i did laugh out loud

Community Regular

zape

Posted
Posted
Gates, like archrival Apple CEO Steve Jobs, is a driven, tough competitor who's known for a huge temper and for taking joy in the vanquishing of any company that gets in his way.

Excuse me? Bill has NEVER been like that AFAIK....

Steve is another issue...

Collaborator

Jigoku

Posted
Posted
I'm going to say it again because it appears that when I said this earlier it was lost on most people. This ad was the first of a series to get people's attention, to get them TALKING. They have people's attention (good or bad) now and how where and what they show from now make people listen.

finally, someone gets it. xD

Grand Master

Hurmoth

Posted
Posted
I'm going to say it again because it appears that when I said this earlier it was lost on most people. This ad was the first of a series to get people's attention, to get them TALKING. They have people's attention (good or bad) now and how where and what they show from now make people listen.

They got tech savvy people's attention. You cannot base the response from tech savvy people and say that got people talking about it. They got people who have already made their minds up on Vista talking about, but those people don't matter. It is average users who matter.

I have seen the ad run in my market about a dozen times now (that's one station, so I imagine it has ran on others as well). Yet no one that I have talked to that are non-savvy people have seen it. Or if they have, they didn't notice it. But they remember those Apple ads though. Simple and funny. A pure white background without anything extra going on to distract the viewer.

Grand Master

spacer

Posted
Posted
I'm going to say it again because it appears that when I said this earlier it was lost on most people. This ad was the first of a series to get people's attention, to get them TALKING. They have people's attention (good or bad) now and how where and what they show from now make people listen.

The flaw in your argument is that the average TV viewer who sees this ad will remember it months later when the next one in the series comes out to expand the "plot" or whatever you want to call it. The people that Microsoft needs to target for their ads are the non-tech savy people who are deciding whether to buy a new PC or a new Mac. Because, lets be honest the tech savy people already know which platform they want/need and why; and, no amount of TV ads is going to change that. Therefore, using a marketing scheme that encompasses several different ads in order to convey the entire message that "Vista is not crap" to the general public is stupid. Most people instantly forget TV commercials because we see so damn many of them no a days.

They got tech savvy people's attention. You cannot base the response from tech savvy people and say that got people talking about it. They got people who have already made their minds up on Vista talking about, but those people don't matter. It is average users who matter.

I have seen the ad run in my market about a dozen times now (that's one station, so I imagine it has ran on others as well). Yet no one that I have talked to that are non-savvy people have seen it. Or if they have, they didn't notice it. But they remember those Apple ads though. Simple and funny. A pure white background without anything extra going on to distract the viewer.

I agree with Hurmoth. The ads need to be quick, engaging, and to the point. IMO, the "mojave" videos (or at least the idea behind them) would have been the perfect thing to put in a national TV ad campaign.

Grand Master

Hurmoth

Posted
Posted
I agree with Hurmoth. The ads need to be quick, engaging, and to the point. IMO, the "mojave" videos (or at least the idea behind them) would have been the perfect thing to put in a national TV ad campaign.

Actually, since you mentioned that, I saw a Mojave ad over the weekend. I want to say it was on TNT (I think I was watching Law & Order). It was probably a 30 second ad with people looking at Vista and giving their opinion and then the Windows logo and the web address to see more about the experiment.

But I only saw it once and that was it.

Community Regular

selphj

Posted
Posted

You guys have to realize that things have changed for Bill. He was driven, and quite brilliant in ruthless business tactics. But something happened to him. He met Melinda. Meeting a good woman, as often does for a man, opened his eyes to things in life that really matter. Since that time in just a few years, their foundation has spent more money even adjusted for inflation than the Rockefeller Foundation has in a century. Bill is a new man. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, is still waist deep in the fight.

Grand Master

Hurmoth

Posted
Posted
And I'm agreeing with you. Relax. We still love you. :)

NO! Don't love me! AHHH!!!! :p

I'm just saying that if they're trying to market to tech savvy people, then they've already lost. I spent a little time this morning showing some people at work the ad and they went, "Huh?" People aren't getting it.

While we as tech savvy people may get it, Microsoft's marketing department failed for the average user. The Mojave ad is what they need to focus on I think.

Grand Master

spacer

Posted
Posted
Actually, since you mentioned that, I saw a Mojave ad over the weekend. I want to say it was on TNT (I think I was watching Law & Order). It was probably a 30 second ad with people looking at Vista and giving their opinion and then the Windows logo and the web address to see more about the experiment.

But I only saw it once and that was it.

Oh was it on TV? I didn't know that. I've just seen those videos in streaming ads online. I guess to clarify, IMO Microsoft should have used the Mojave videos in place of the Seinfeld commercials on Fox/ABC during primetime football hours. I must have seen the Seinfeld commercial at least a dozen times while I was watching football yesterday afternoon.

Grand Master

Hurmoth

Posted
Posted
Oh was it on TV? I didn't know that. I've just seen those videos in streaming ads online. I guess to clarify, IMO Microsoft should have used the Mojave videos in place of the Seinfeld commercials on Fox/ABC during primetime football hours. I must have seen the Seinfeld commercial at least a dozen times while I was watching football yesterday afternoon.

Yup, but like I said only once :( I bet all those football fans were like, "Who's that guy with the haircut? Does he go to the same place Donald Trump does for a haircut?" :p

Grand Master

magik

Posted
Posted
NO! Don't love me! AHHH!!!! :p

I'm just saying that if they're trying to market to tech savvy people, then they've already lost. I spent a little time this morning showing some people at work the ad and they went, "Huh?" People aren't getting it.

While we as tech savvy people may get it, Microsoft's marketing department failed for the average user. The Mojave ad is what they need to focus on I think.

While the Mojave ads may be more in line with what they need, it is certainly not enough. I was talking to a non-tech savvy person about the ad (they actually brought it up) and he said that he doesn't believe it. He thinks it's BS and that they planted the people there and that it's not true first-hand accounts.

I think they need a whole different direction completely. Why not just show the actual product and highlight the features and contrast them with XP and other offerings out there today? Keep it simple, short and to the point. That Bill Gates Seinfeld ad is like a mini-movie. I really think it just loses it's audience after a while, especially in a loud environment (football audience, as it seems to be targeted).

... but who knows. Perhaps the whole series of ads will come together in the end. We'll see.

Grand Master

shakey_snake

Posted
Posted
I'm just saying that if they're trying to market to tech savvy people, then they've already lost.

Why? Microsoft's biggest pool of potential customers are the IT departments and people of medium and small businesses that are still running XP or 2000.

Microsoft isn't about selling laptops and ipods to kids who can get a hold of their parents credit cards, so their commercials aren't going to be the same.

Grand Master

+Mystic MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted
They got tech savvy people's attention. You cannot base the response from tech savvy people and say that got people talking about it. They got people who have already made their minds up on Vista talking about, but those people don't matter. It is average users who matter.

I have seen the ad run in my market about a dozen times now (that's one station, so I imagine it has ran on others as well). Yet no one that I have talked to that are non-savvy people have seen it. Or if they have, they didn't notice it. But they remember those Apple ads though. Simple and funny. A pure white background without anything extra going on to distract the viewer.

I agree with your later point about Mojave being more apt for tv, but I still hold a little bit of faith for my original argument.

MS couldn't go with a straight up Apple style ad because they would have been labeled as copying and unoriginal, two negatives they would want to stay away from. For the average consumer knowing both figures in the commercial is helpful and will bridge the gap for most people.

I'm not saying this ad was end all be all, but you can expect to see a huge leap with their next one. Once again, I'm not disagreeing with you completely because I agree at some point, I'm just saying giving the general public a little more credit.

Grand Master

Hurmoth

Posted
Posted
Why? Microsoft's biggest pool of potential customers are the IT departments and people of medium and small businesses that are still running XP or 2000.

Microsoft isn't about selling laptops and ipods to kids who can get a hold of their parents credit cards, so their commercials aren't going to be the same.

Microsoft decided to start doing ads to combat Apple's ads. Microsoft's marketing head stated as much. So these ads are in fact not aimed at IT departments. Why would they be? People in IT Departments aren't going to switch to an operating system based on an ad, but clearly (as evident from Apple's steadily increasing marketshare and constantly out doing itself every quarter) Apple ads do work for average consumers.

But if an IT Department actually decides to switch to Vista because of an ad that features Seinfeld and Gates trying on shoes, that company has some serious issues.

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