Sugar coated
The first US TV ad for Windows 7 has been unveiled and it is focusing on positive tech website reviews to demonstrate how much more good will there already is for its new operating system.
Cute kid Kylie rather implausibly looks up a bunch of Windows 7 reviews online on her Dad's laptop and even has the ability to determine that they're positive - calling them "happy words". She then decides to turn these reviews into a girly slide show - as you do.
Syrupy schmaltz aside, what is un-said in this ad is that Vista was pretty much universally panned prior to, and especially just after, its launch three years ago. Microsoft is understandably delighted at the contrastingly positive vibes it's getting about Windows 7 and wants even consumers that don't read the tech press to know about them.
According to Advertising Age, the overt fluffiness of the ad is a deliberate contrast to Apple's smug, snide ‘Get a Mac' TV ad campaign in which it pillories the Windows based PC as being nerdy, awkward and uncool.
"If you look at the new advertising Apple's been doing, and the back and forth in the marketplace ... they may be more about attacking and slamming, but we're much more about sharing the incredible buzz about Windows 7," Gayle Troberman, advertising manager at Microsoft, told Ad Age. "We think the discussion should be about the products and the people who use them. That's a lot more interesting and inspiring ... than watching us skid into a mud fight."
Here's the ad, let us know how inspiring you find it.
