Microsoft – ‘Commercially’ Challenged?

 I’m on the edge of glory…Several youtubers choreographing their steps to Lady Gaga’s latest hit, unleashing their inner monster. That’s a commercial that grabs you!

 

 

‘If you don’t have an iPhone…well, you don’t have an iPhone’ Apple commericial – reminded me of Avis’ classic slogan We try harder. In college, we learnt that the Avis tagline (We try harder) was virtually unbeatable. What would a competitor say in response? We try even harder? We try harder still? Essentially, Avis nailed it. As did Apple.

 

 

 

Not so much Microsoft. With their continued weak attempts at getting Apple back with their ‘I’m a PC’ to their equally awful Windows Vista commercials, it seems there is not a single memorable commercial that Microsoft has put out over the last two decades.

It is certainly not for lack of money – they fall in the same boat as Apple and Google when it comes to having cash to splurge on getting their name out. If anything, it comes down to a lack of ‘imagination’. A lack of the ‘coolness’ factor. And that missing X-Factor doesn’t just affect Microsoft’s commercials. It affects bigger things – such as bright young 20 something programmers deciding whether to go work for Apple, Google or Microsoft.

Come on Microsoft, this should be a no brainer. Cool commercials are about winning the hearts and minds of the next generation of coders. So far, only Bing commercials are somewhat approaching cool (even they leave a lot of room for improvement).

How hard can it be to find an ‘idea-geek’ for churning out cool commercial ideas?   I’m available if you have the time to talk!