[vimeo https://vimeo.com/43487168] I simply lo-o-o-o-ve the Virgin Mobile “Crazy Life” marketing campaign. The commercials are energetic, provocative and true! When your life is your mobile you don’t have a life. Take my iPhone 4 […]
Tag: advertising
What is an Ad?
TechFlash’s Todd Bishop and I disagree about what constitutes an ad. I ask you which of us is right. The disagreement started over Todd’s post “Windows Ads, Finally Cool?” He reports about some Windows 7 videos that popped up online a few days ago.
I saw the same vids on Tuesday night and almost blogged about them. But I recalled reading something a few weeks ago (from the esteemed Long Zheng) about the same videos being produced conceptually for Microsoft. Also, the run times were all wrong for broadcast. Nobody airs a 51-second commercials. I dismissed the videos as YouTube-distributed marketing material, but not advertisements.
What is Microsoft’s Search Engine?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTbAvVYk9d0] That’s the question Todd Bishop (accompanied by John Cook) asked people on the streets of Seattle about six months ago. No one seemed to know what was Microsoft’s search engine (At that […]
'I'm a PC, and More Happy Is Coming'
Kylie is back! Everyone’s favorite Windows Photo Gallery youngster pushes Windows 7. (Say, is she a first grader now?) Kylie kicks off what the YouTube version of the commercial calls the “Good News” advertising campaign.
Megawoosh: Slip Slidding Fake
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkwh4ZaxHIA] Advertising Age asks: “What’s more popular than ‘Roller Babies’. The world’s largest Slip ‘n Slide. Microsoft’s ‘Megawoosh’ campaign has successfully displaced Evian at the top of the Viral Video Chart, with almost […]
No Thanks: Full-Screen iPhone Ads
Look what popped up on my iPhone 3GS while reading a New York Times story. A full-screen advertisement. I would rather skip the ads and pay the Times, say, five bucks a month for content. […]
Microsoft treats Razorfish like Fishbait
Is there some relationship between razorfish and stingrays? About the time I started to blog about Microsoft selling digital ad agency Razorfish to Publicis Groupe, a phone call came that a stingray had stung my daughter. So I raced north to Del Mar beach, where the wonderful lifeguards cared for my wounded 15 year-old. We’re back home, and I am, finally, ready to offer my intrusive opinion about Microsoft’s sale.
What Has Search Overload Done to Us?
Whoa, the fourth Bing commercial is simply outstanding. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shouldn’t feel bad about approving that $80 million to $100 million marketing budget. He’s getting good value for the money spent.
Microsoft Finally Finds a Lifestyle It Can Sell
The most successful companies share several attributes in common. Among the most important: They sell a lifestyle. Apple has effectively done this with multiple products, which is unusual. There are separate, yet related, iPod, iPhone and Mac lifestyles. But many buyers pay a premium price to join the Mac club.
There are plenty of other examples. The Harley Davidson lifestyle is the graying, middle-aged guy, dressed in leather and riding his hog or the stereotypical Hell’s Angels type. Pepsi sells a lifestyle, too. In my youth, it was the “Pepsi Generation.” Now it’s the active, youth sports lifestyle around Mtn. Dew, among other Pepsico products.
New Apple and Microsoft Ads Fail
I’m not loving new “Get a Mac” and “Laptop Hunters” commercials that debuted this week. After four homers, Microsoft fouls out with “Lauren and Sue.” Apple simply strikes out with “Elimination,” which is sorry response to Microsoft’s Laptop Hunters series.
Did Laptop Hunter Sheila Find Treasure?
Microsoft’s newest “Laptop Hunters” commercial, embedded below, is the most ambitious yet and perhaps most misleading. The buyer’s budget is bigger and her laptop criteria slaps Apple where it hurts: Among core constituency of artists, designers and filmmakers.
When Magazines Mattered
To promote the Macintosh 22 years ago, Apple purchased all—as in every—ad space in the Newsweek 1984 election issue. That was 39 pages.
The folks over at Graphical User Interface Gallery (aka Guidebook) have preserved every page from that Newsweek issue. It was a time when magazine advertising really mattered, unlike today when the Internet undermines magazine circulation.