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For months, Microsoft has jabbed at Apple with an, at times, baffling advertising campaign for Windows PCs. Now Microsoft may finally land a solid blow against its rival.
In a new chapter to its ad campaign that will begin airing during the NCAA basketball playoffs on CBS Thursday evening, Microsoft will begin hammering on a theme that could resonate in these times of economic hardship: how much less expensive Windows PCs are than Macs. For the commercials, Microsoft’s advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Boguksy, recruited prospective computer shoppers in the Los Angeles area through Craigslist and other sites, with a tantalizing offer to give them between $700 and $2,000 to purchase a new PC.
According to Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer product marketing at Microsoft, the agency told recruits it was a market research firm and didn’t mention it was working with Microsoft. The recruits were told they could keep whatever money they didn’t spend on a PC so they had incentives to look for good values.
The first commercial shows a woman named Lauren, who had a $1,000 budget and says she wants to buy a laptop with at least a 17-inch screen and a comfortable keyboard. With a camera crew following her, she visits an Apple retail store, leaving disappointed because the least expensive laptop is $1,000 and has only a 13-inch screen (that would be the $999 MacBook .
“I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person,” Lauren says sarcastically while driving her car.
Lauren ends up at a Best Buy, ogling a bounty of Windows PCs, where she’s able to purchase a H-P Pavilion notebook with a 17-inch screen for $699.99, before sales tax. Brooks says that, off camera, Lauren spent about $900 total after also buying a printer. “I’m a PC, and I got just what I wanted,” Lauren says at the end of the ad.
The message of this advertising campaign is much more easily comprehensible than Microsoft’s recent Windows commercials. An early batch of ads featured Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld in strange situations that had nothing to do with Windows PCs. Later ones featured a mixture of celebrities, Microsoft employees and ordinary people proudly declaring “I’m a PC,” an effort to counter a multiyear effort by Apple in its ads to portray Windows PCs as stodgy, technically inferior products.
Increasingly as the economy has headed south, Microsoft executives, including CEO Steve Ballmer, have started questioning whether Apple will be able to sustain its gains in the PC business with its traditionally higher-priced Mac products. Apple’s cheapest laptop, per Lauren’s experience, is $999. Users can easily find Windows “netbooks” — inexpensive laptops — for $300.
Microsoft’s recruiting process for its commercials is interesting in this regard. Brooks says of the roughly dozen computer shoppers its agency recruited, not a single one ended up spending their money on a Mac. Brooks says he “swears on a stack of Bibles” that the agency didn’t in any way steer the shoppers towards a particular brand of computer or operating system. “Value is on the top of everybody’s mind these days with the economic situation we’re in,” he says.
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For months, Microsoft has jabbed at Apple with an, at times, baffling advertising campaign for Windows PCs. Now Microsoft may finally land a solid blow against its rival.
In a new chapter to its ad campaign that will begin airing during the NCAA basketball playoffs on CBS Thursday evening, Microsoft will begin hammering on a theme that could resonate in these times of economic hardship: how much less expensive Windows PCs are than Macs. For the commercials, Microsoft’s advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Boguksy, recruited prospective computer shoppers in the Los Angeles area through Craigslist and other sites, with a tantalizing offer to give them between $700 and $2,000 to purchase a new PC.
According to Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer product marketing at Microsoft, the agency told recruits it was a market research firm and didn’t mention it was working with Microsoft. The recruits were told they could keep whatever money they didn’t spend on a PC so they had incentives to look for good values.
The first commercial shows a woman named Lauren, who had a $1,000 budget and says she wants to buy a laptop with at least a 17-inch screen and a comfortable keyboard. With a camera crew following her, she visits an Apple retail store, leaving disappointed because the least expensive laptop is $1,000 and has only a 13-inch screen (that would be the $999 MacBook .
“I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person,” Lauren says sarcastically while driving her car.
Lauren ends up at a Best Buy, ogling a bounty of Windows PCs, where she’s able to purchase a H-P Pavilion notebook with a 17-inch screen for $699.99, before sales tax. Brooks says that, off camera, Lauren spent about $900 total after also buying a printer. “I’m a PC, and I got just what I wanted,” Lauren says at the end of the ad.
The message of this advertising campaign is much more easily comprehensible than Microsoft’s recent Windows commercials. An early batch of ads featured Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld in strange situations that had nothing to do with Windows PCs. Later ones featured a mixture of celebrities, Microsoft employees and ordinary people proudly declaring “I’m a PC,” an effort to counter a multiyear effort by Apple in its ads to portray Windows PCs as stodgy, technically inferior products.
Increasingly as the economy has headed south, Microsoft executives, including CEO Steve Ballmer, have started questioning whether Apple will be able to sustain its gains in the PC business with its traditionally higher-priced Mac products. Apple’s cheapest laptop, per Lauren’s experience, is $999. Users can easily find Windows “netbooks” — inexpensive laptops — for $300.
Microsoft’s recruiting process for its commercials is interesting in this regard. Brooks says of the roughly dozen computer shoppers its agency recruited, not a single one ended up spending their money on a Mac. Brooks says he “swears on a stack of Bibles” that the agency didn’t in any way steer the shoppers towards a particular brand of computer or operating system. “Value is on the top of everybody’s mind these days with the economic situation we’re in,” he says.
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