Our Passion, Your whatever :) - Microsoft's Mediocre Marketing

Michael Gartenberg | June 03, 2005, 09:07 AM

Kathy Sierra rips apart the Microsoft commercials. I agree and I've hated them from day one (almost as much as I hated the last MSFT Office campaign). Kathy's right about all of this and more. Scoble argues that he likes the new Start Something campaign more. I agree, it's better but it's a far cry from what needs to be done. For example, in the astronomy ad, assuming Microsoft sparked my interest about this. What do i do next? What astronomy programs work with Windows and what telescopes do they work with. We constantly find two themes that slow down the adoption of digital technology by consumers. the first is, "I didn't know I could do that". The second is "I knew that could be done but I thought it was too hard for me to do". Microsoft gets the first part, they don't get the second. I still have yet to see a TV spot showing what a Tablet PC can do. Or a Media Center Edition. Or why I might by a portable media center instead of an iPod. Dori's point is correct, more and more sophisticated users, the kind who tell others what to buy are using Macintosh. They use them because Apple markets their products in a way that emphasizes lifestyle as well as creates aspirational desires that users believe they can achieve. Even if they never create music with GarageBand or make the next Star Wars film with iMovie. Scoble thinks Apple's market share rise is about security, that's a fine way to reframe the argument but there's a lot more to it than that. That's only one small part of the equation. Hint, it's part of the reason that iPod is the dominant music player and why no one's buying Windows Media based devices for the most part.