Microsoft ad drops the ball

Microsoft has decided to drop the ads with Jerry Seinfeld. Personally, I think this is a big mistake - it looks like the company is messing up the biggest-spending campaign most people have heard of, and that’s going to confirm many people’s impressions that the company are just not getting it right these days. Yes, the adverts were a bit kooky, and Seth Godin may have a point that there is something a little bit fake about it all.

For more than twenty years, Microsoft has relentlessly commodified itself and the software it makes. It has worked to become a monopoly, a semi-faceless organization that cranks out very good (or pretty good) software that gets a job done for the middle of the market. It’s been a profitable strategy. But now they have Apple envy.

But from my point of view, Microsoft had made a good start to a difficult but limited job. Basically, they needed to show the benefits of ubiquity and affordability, i.e. that they had brought computing and communication between computers to huge numbers of ordinary folk. At the same time they needed to defuse Apple’s advertising message without giving Apple more ammunition. I thought they put across the message in a funny and oblique way, even if it was not hugely accessible. They just needed to move it a little further to show that they have done a pretty good job that no-one else could have done, and they will carry on doing a good job for ordinary folks.

Instead they decided to go head-to-head with Apple, which always looked like a no-no to me. It sends the wrong message: That Apple are setting the agenda and Microsoft doesn’t like it. The new ad is trying to imply that Apple ads are disrespectful to the people that use Microsoft. But by doing so, they’ve put the ball in Apple’s court and, on past evidence, I doubt Apple will waste their chance.

I can imagine the Apple guy in the guise of the therapist, for example. A user worries, ‘My friends think I bought my Mac to look cool, but I just wanted a computer I could use without having to call the helpline all the time’. The response could remind them the user that ‘Apple just doesn’t see why you have to do it all the hard way. That’s why we introduced the desktop and mouse to personal computing all those years ago - which everyone else copied. Anyway, why shouldn’t you enjoy looking at your computer? It’s a great machine. It should look good.’ OK, I’m not an ad copywriter, but you get the idea. Apple can just tone down the cool, emphasize reliability and that they see the user as a friend. They’ve done it before, and it worked. Now’s they’ve got the chance to do it all over again.