PR 101 – Weekly Rant #5 – What’s up with the Microsoft Windows 7 Commercials?
Jeff Cole | January 20, 2010
If you have been reading my blog, you know I am no fan of Microsoft’s marketing. The Redmond, Wash.-based company’s efforts come way too close to the line between truth and fabrication for my taste. Remember the commercials where a “real person,” who turned out to be an actress didn’t really go into an Apple Store, as she claimed.
Oops, they’ve done it again
Well, the company has done it again in the two commercials I have seen for Windows 7. In one, a very tall man named “Jack” claims he had the idea for Windows 7 while in the shower. They show him having his idea in the shower.
However, watch the commercial closely. The guy in the shower is not the same person who says he came up with Windows 7. If “Jack” is a real person, why the body double? Was he too shy to take off his shirt?
The same thing happens in a second commercial. “Steve” tells of having his revelation (complete with Angelic music). But, to me the problem is the “Steve” trimming the bushes when the light bulb is not the same man who is telling the story. Watch the commercial to see for yourself. The gardening one is taller and frankly more buff.
So what’s the big deal?
Why do I care, you ask? Don’t all commercials bend the truth?
Not all of them. In fact, most companies try to be honest. You find out quickly enough if they are or aren’t easily enough. In these days of social media, it is not hard to check claims. Companies who cheat are outed pretty quickly, I have found.
Frankly, given Microsoft’s record with the Apple commercials, I would think they would want to be very careful with their marketing. If they can’t even tell the truth about the people in their commercials, what else isn’t the company not telling us? This is why I am a member of the Apple cult.
I do have to say I like one Microsoft product – Excel. In fact, I love Excel. It is so easy to use and very functional. I also used to use Word because it is so ubiquitous. However, I am now using Google Docs more and more as it is easier to share information.
For almost everything else, I primarily use Apple products. I am writing on MacBook. As I said, I a member of the cult.
So, what do you think?
What I hate is that it’s just a lie.
Can you imagine emailing Microsoft saying: “Dear Microsoft, make Windows easier”. then claiming credit with the next OS version?
Plus in many ways they’ve made it more difficult, and more click intensive to do stuff, so I challenge that it’s even easier.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Levi McConnell, JeffCole53. JeffCole53 said: PR 101 – Weekly Rant #5 – What’s up with the Microsoft Windows 7 Commercials? | PR 101 http://bit.ly/4z5CVh [...]
What bothers me most about the commercials is that they’re basically saying Vista was awful…but Microsoft still made you buy it!!
At the moment, we have 5 PCs in our office and we don’t really use the newest one operating on Vista. It randomly does irritating things like shifting the screen sideways or defaulting to printing backwards in mirror image.
I didn’t really mind the body double thing… that’s just supposed to be satire about the “real people” seeIng themselves as better than they really are. What I have a problem with is the cheap attemp to spin some of Windows’ long time design flaws and shortcomigs into “inventions” and “ideas.” The PR lesson here is that if you’re going to adress your product’s shortcomings, do it head on (see also: Domino’s pizza, an outstanding new ad campaign). Not with a cheap spin.
I have no issue at all with the body switch that takes place when they have their idea. They are only playing off the concept that we all have an image in our own minds of what we appear as – We may think ourselves the Adonis, the Master Chef, The Genius, etc.
It is not that they twist the truth there, because in fact they are only playing on the truth. People do have an image of themselves that does not match how everyone else see’s them.
I, myself, am an Adonis, Master Chef, with an IQ of 178.
You realize that the reason that it’s a different (better looking/model-type person) is because it is the “real” person’s imagination (so they’ve imagined themselves hunkier), just like it is their imagination that they invented Windows 7. It’s actually a semi-creative concept.
Hi Jeff,
I don’t particularly like Windows either. For over 20 years my business (code for: Me) paid a fortune for rubbish that never adequately worked.
In December 2007 I changed to Apple and my world has gotten so much better.
That being said, the commercials are obvious in the use of a body double; it’s part of the fun.
In fact, in the second one you mention, the word “Reenactment” is flashed at the bottom of the screen.
I don’t know of the reference to Apple commercials, but with regards to these two; I think you’re overreacting just a little. The body double is so obvious it’s probably intended to add humour or quirkiness ( I assume) not to be misleading.
But still, I will NEVER use Windows ever again – I am delighted with Mac!
Rgds,
Ric
The “doubles” in the commercial are meant to be a joke – it’s how the “real” people in the ad see themselves in the reenactment of their grand ideas. Not that I’m defending Microsoft…
Personally I like the commercial. They stopped playing the one with a really fat guy and the reanactment was a skinny model. I would put the commercials up there with the Dominoes commercials that just came out that where they admit that there pizza sucked.
I like companies that realize that they have problems and listen to the customers to come up with suggestions to fix them. That being say I like apple stuff and have an iphone and I would chear them if they did some kind of commercial for the iphone in response ot the droid commercials because there is a lot of things it can do but also a lot of things it cant do.
When I watched those commercials, I got the impression that the body double was “tongue in cheek”–they clearly meant for the audience to be aware of the body doubles…they didn’t try to hide it at all. I thought it was kind of funny. Perhaps I misunderstood?
Buy Apples. More and more companies are switching over.
[...] PR 101 – Weekly Rant #5 – What's up with the Microsoft Windows 7 … [...]
JEFF!!!!!
Great Googly Moogly! I thought you were smarter than this! You really believe what you’re saying about the doubles? You don’t see the humor in that?!? I’m not going to bother explaining as I think Cal and the rest of the group did an excelent job.
You missed the boat on this one though it did start a decent discussion about that kind of humor used in advertising. I, for onr, LOVE ‘em! My wife laughs every time they play. Me? I smirk and wish it was either my creative or my production that brought it to life.
Well done!