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With the launch of the much anticipated Windows 7 (’much aniticpated’ as one might anticipate an audit) Microsoft has come up with the idea of users hosting Windows 7 ‘parties’.  Such a sexy cool viral idea!  … right.  To get people really excited about this they have released a series of Youtube videos with tips on how to host one of these parties.  And, I must admit, it got me excited.  Excited about looking into switching over to Apple products.

This Windows 7 marketing campaign is so excruciatingly lame, it makes me wonder if Microsoft has been vehemently insular for so long that it has lost complete touch with the reality of the cultural landscape.  Just about every piece of dialogue, set prop, cultural marker and relationship subtext in the videos feels so contrived, plastic and culturally false that it made me stop and wonder.  What if it is actually some sort of subtle ironic spoof-trap-thing that the Microsoft marketing managers are slyly leading everyone into before they turn on the lights and laugh and laugh?  But then I caught myself.  No way they are that clever.  Vista has killed the notion that Microsoft can respond to the market in any sort of way that would be considered ‘clever’.  It is just a sad fact that the marketing campaign, and its execution, is very bad.  Take the combination of actors for example.  It seems obvious to me that the video’s producers were trying to show a mix of characters so that at least one of them would resonate with the various audience segments that would watch it.  But what happens is that the characters association with each other causes them to loose a sense of reality.  Which then leads to their loss of credibility with their target audiences.  The result is that they are reduced to mere cliches.  Which just hurts everybody.  I won’t even begin to get into the setting.  Balloons tied to the counter (nothing says ‘party’ like balloons!).  Everyone helping move things to the island (and chipping in with something helpful to say!).  Lousy kitchen (with wrought iron fruit stand!).  There is nothing that feels ‘authentic’ about it.

This latest Windows advertising blunder makes me think that there must be only one management team at Microsoft.  In past years they were focused on acquisitions, squashing competitors or figuring out how to outmaneuver Google, and they forgot to keep an eye on the clunky Vista product.  Since that has landed with a thud they have dropped everything to focus on Windows 7, taking their eye off of how to correctly market it to an increasingly Windows-sceptical consumer.  It is even more peculiar to me that Apple has been beating on Windows with its very successful ‘I’m a Mac’ add campaign for some time – so Microsoft should be able to identify what resonates with the general consumer public.  If only because they have been the target.  But this new ‘Windows 7 party’ idea is all that Microsoft could come up with as a counter.  Of course people will say that the ‘I’m a PC’ campaign with the cute little girl was the answer to Apple’s adds.  But that campaign lasted all of about ten minutes.  And the second round of commercials was nowhere near as good as the first.  So it died out quickly.  And Apple continues to come up with new campaign angles.  I had hoped that Microsoft would have learned from this a long time ago and made some big changes with big new directions.  But it has not happened.

Overall, I think Microsoft products and their add campaigns have combined to make the public turn away from PCs.  The fact that Vista was installed on many new laptops has made me hold off on buying one.  That can’t make manufacturers happy to hear.  And now, with this new campaign for Windows 7, I question whether Microsoft has any understanding at all of the people that they would like to be their customers.  Obviously it seems they have surrendered all the cool consumers to Apple.  So as a PC user is that what I am?  A soul-less suburban-dwelling automaton?  Yikes.  Sounds like what I have been running from all of my adult life.  Makes me want to reach for a piece of fruit on that fruit stand… is that an apple?  Oh, wait.  Those are lemons up there.  Unfortunately fitting symbol for a Windows add?