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Old 01-05-2009, 11:53 PM   #1
dWSOj26H

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Default Is Microsoft deliberately making stupid ads?
Has anyone seen MS's latest ad of "You find it, you keep it?"

So a woman who is into film editing, has $2,000 to spend on a new laptop, and she's apparently a film editor. She looks at the Mac pro (2.4ghz Core2Duo, 2GBs of 1066Mhz DDR3 RAM, 15" screen (1440x900)).

What does she choose? HP's 16-inch HDX 16t... which has 4GBs of slower RAM (667mhz DDR2), a 2.13ghz C2D and a shitty 1366x768 display.

Now I know this forum is not exactly 'Mac Friendly' as we're all gamers... right? But this ad really makes MS's marketing people look stupid.

Even the ad where the guy is looking for "performance, portability and battery life" and chooses and 8lb brick, with 2 hours battery life and 533mhz RAM (slower than a 2006 MacBook) is not as bad as this latest classic.

MS are making PCs look even worse than they actually are. There are lots of nice PC laptops, so why do this?
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Old 01-06-2009, 12:06 AM   #2
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Yeah, I have to admit it, even being a HUGE Vista fanboy, the Microsoft commercials have been kind of on the " wtf...why did they make this commercial" side of things. Especially the CONSTANT commercials about windows picture gallery or whatever. Believe me, my HTPC is a media machine and we have hundreds upon hundreds of pictures on it, and while the picture thing built into vista is a nice little "quicky" thingamagig, I still use Photoshop to do "real" editing. I just dont understand how ONE feature, thats not even that great anyways, should be thier selling point. And the "find the best computer for $xxxx" are pretty stupid too, because the average person knows NOTHING about what hardware they SHOULD get, or even which hardware is better compared to others. In reality the hardware is the "same" across macs and pc's now, therefore if OS brand isnt an issue, then just choose the one with the best specs for the lowest price...I dont see how OS comes into the play. Most people are either MAC or PC people anyways and stick to the corresponding sections of the store.

However, the Apple commericals are far worse IMO. I literally turn off the tv or walk out of the room when the guy in the brown suit and they guy wearing clothes from the gap shows up...yet again. Spewing lies about how bad pc's are and not quite ever putting across why macs are better....hmmm, WUT?

I mean most commercials are just downright awfull to begin with, when they arent downright lying, they are distracting you with stuff to where most of the time you dont even know what they were trying to sell. Its quite funny how innefective most commercials really are. Generically I only like the humurous ones and most of the time I couldnt tell you what they are trying to sell.
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Old 01-06-2009, 12:21 AM   #3
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Has anyone seen MS's latest ad of "You find it, you keep it?"

So a woman who is into film editing, has $2,000 to spend on a new laptop, and she's apparently a film editor. She looks at the Mac pro (2.4ghz Core2Duo, 2GBs of 1066Mhz DDR3 RAM, 15" screen (1440x900)).

What does she choose? HP's 16-inch HDX 16t... which has 4GBs of slower RAM (667mhz DDR2), a 2.13ghz C2D and a shitty 1366x768 display.

Now I know this forum is not exactly 'Mac Friendly' as we're all gamers... right? But this ad really makes MS's marketing people look stupid.

Even the ad where the guy is looking for "performance, portability and battery life" and chooses and 8lb brick, with 2 hours battery life and 533mhz RAM (slower than a 2006 MacBook) is not as bad as this latest classic.

MS are making PCs look even worse than they actually are. There are lots of nice PC laptops, so why do this?
Simple. Microsoft is trying to appeal to the market that Apple is trying to reach. The non technical person. Microsoft doesnt need to convince us. To us the commercials on both sides are just stupid and misleading.
Now is this the best way to reach those people? ehhhhh
I highly doubt the people they are targeting even bother researching the model picked. Most non technical people don't want to bother understanding the technical specs. All they do is watch a commercial get sold go to the store and then get manipulated by the sales person. Done.

To me the Apple commercials are far worse just as the previous poster explained. Apple talks trash about PCs but never states why apple is better. My fav apple commercial is the old one where a guy said he was tired of "trying to get sound" out of the pc. If your that ****ing stupid then go buy a mac.

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2-UuIEOcss
You are to blame if your too stupid to not back up or set word to keep backing up for you.

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tq7y...eature=related
You are all idiots.
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Old 01-06-2009, 12:24 AM   #4
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I'm a PC guy, but even I'll admit that's retarded. Mac's have their place. And being a film editor? That's Mac territory IMO. Mac's excel at the a/v editing type of stuff.

They're great machines for what they do. Some of them are overpriced, but there are some machines that are fairly priced.


However, the Apple commericals are far worse IMO. I literally turn off the tv or walk out of the room when the guy in the brown suit and they guy wearing clothes from the gap shows up...yet again. Spewing lies about how bad pc's are and not quite ever putting across why macs are better....hmmm, WUT? That's probably my biggest beef with apple at this point. Their ad's are HORRIBLE. Those mac v.s. pc commercials are sometimes slightly funny, but overall completely worthless.

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Old 01-06-2009, 12:44 AM   #5
dWSOj26H

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To me the Apple commercials are far worse just as the previous poster explained. Apple talks trash about PCs but never states why apple is better. My fav apple commercial is the old one where a guy said he was tired of "trying to get sound" out of the pc. If your that ****ing stupid then go buy a mac.
From a purely marketing perspective, Apple's commercials are better. If Apple was to do what MS just did, they'd say

"We gave $2,000 to Susan to buy the best gaming rig she could find, and she chose the iMac 24" screen with it's 'amazing' nVidia 9600GT..." blah blah. It would be BS, same as the MS ones where people end up buying machines that don't do what they say they do.

If I was marketing PCs and Windows, I'd emphasise gaming, variety of software, the fact you can use either iTunes or Windows Media, and the huge speed advantages of MS Office for Windows Vs Mac, and also about expressing individuality through different models of PC and Windows customization.

I would not try and convince anyone that a 533mhz HP brick was actually a better machine than an Alum MacBook - especially when there are HP machines that are worth buying.
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Old 01-06-2009, 12:44 AM   #6
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nevermiiiiind
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Old 01-06-2009, 12:54 AM   #7
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From a purely marketing perspective, Apple's commercials are better. If Apple was to do what MS just did, they'd say

"We gave $2,000 to Susan to buy the best gaming rig she could find, and she chose the iMac 24" screen with it's 'amazing' nVidia 9600GT..." blah blah. It would be BS, same as the MS ones where people end up buying machines that don't do what they say they do.

If I was marketing PCs and Windows, I'd emphasise gaming, variety of software, the fact you can use either iTunes or Windows Media, and the huge speed advantages of MS Office for Windows Vs Mac, and also about expressing individuality through different models of PC and Windows customization.

I would not try and convince anyone that a 533mhz HP brick was actually a better machine than an Alum MacBook - especially when there are HP machines that are worth buying.
I would purposely buy the schittiest HP laptop in the world if it meant I didn't have to look like a right bender using a mac book in public [yes]

if you buy a Mac and your not a professional you might as well hang around the gents toilets offering reach a rounds to the local cottaging community [rofl]
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Old 01-06-2009, 01:01 AM   #8
expabsPapsgag

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I would not try and convince anyone that a 533mhz HP brick was actually a better machine than an Alum MacBook - especially when there are HP machines that are worth buying.
They're not trying to do that at all. MS is simply attempting to make PCs look like a better bang-for-the-buck option than Macs.

In the current economic climate, it's a very wise move. And it's really one of the only options MS has. They know they can't compete with Apple on image ("coolness" factor), so they have to try to reinforce the dollar value. The ad with the parent shopping for her kid has the potential to very effective, as parents on a budget don't care about cool--they care about the bottom line.


Look at it this way: Imagine that a car company produced an inexpensive, sporty car model. If they produced an ad that opened with a guy thinking about a Ferrari and realizing it would be forever out of reach, and then demonstrated that their $15,000 car could provide a similar level of excitement, it would provide a positive association with the inexpensive car.

The only way to intelligently declare whether or not an ad is truly "bad" is to evaluate the impact that it has on a company's sales. And that is yet to be seen.
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Old 01-06-2009, 01:13 AM   #9
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i wouldnt hire either of them, the guy in the suit looks like hes on day release from a mental instution and the other guy just looks like he needs a slap.
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Old 01-06-2009, 01:20 AM   #10
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The best thing MS can do is not to waste money on paid advertising, the Win 7 beta has created so much word of mouth advertising and media response for almost no costs.

That demotivator is one of the best ever.
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Old 01-06-2009, 01:41 AM   #11
dWSOj26H

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The only way to intelligently declare whether or not an ad is truly "bad" is to evaluate the impact that it has on a company's sales. And that is yet to be seen.
Well that's the bottom line, I completely agree. I think MS is in danger of aligning itself with 'cheap and nasty' during a time when people are beung more considerate about how they spend their dollars.

When you consider all factors, such as maintenance, cost of additional software, anti-cirus subscriptions and most of all, resale value, the Mac isn't actually more expensive. How much do you think you'd get for a 3 year old Dell laptop? I could get 50% of my MacBook value in 2 mins on Cragslist or eBay.
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Old 01-06-2009, 08:28 AM   #12
km2000

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I personally think microsoft would bundle allot more software with windows, but it would all end in tears in the courtroom. For some reason, Apple can do what it likes, and nobody will even bat an eyelid!
You can thank crappy governments that like to punish companies for making good products and give bailouts to epic fail companies like AIG and GM.
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Old 01-06-2009, 08:39 PM   #13
oraltyrap

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You can thank crappy governments that like to punish companies for making good products
Name one.
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Old 01-06-2009, 09:58 PM   #14
Enladalusange

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Name one.
I blame Australia's previous government for discontinuing Monaco Bar Ice Creams! Now that Rudd is in power, they are back... coincidence? I think not!!!

[rofl][rofl]
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Old 01-06-2009, 10:05 PM   #15
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I blame Australia's previous government for discontinuing Monaco Bar Ice Creams! Now that Rudd is in power, they are back... coincidence? I think not!!!

[rofl][rofl]
I stand corrected.
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Old 01-06-2009, 10:54 PM   #16
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The benchmarks I was referring to showed both, but I don't think the point is moot when it comes to gaming as we're talking about a MacBook pro which is more than capable of running Vista and playing games. Remember, the point of the ads is to suggest you get more for you money by not buying a Macintosh. Apple don't care whether you install Windows or not (I have Vista on my 2006 MacBook, it's very fast).

Having said that, I'm going to concede the point on RAM speed, it's not the most important thing here, agreed.
I thought the whole point of a Mac (and indeed, Apple's ads) was to avoid Windows? I mean, if you buy a Mac and end up (exclusively) running Windows on it, then you have lost the only advantage (if you want to call it that) the Mac had. Given how cheap you can build a great Windows machine for, the only reason you would buy a Mac is for the OS.

And while it's true, Apple may not care, I know the community sure does. Want to insult a Mac snob? Just tell them Vista runs great on your macbook. Or that you hackintoshed OS X onto your little netbook. [thumbup]
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Old 01-06-2009, 11:20 PM   #17
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You can thank crappy governments that like to punish companies for making good products and give bailouts to epic fail companies like AIG and GM.
Where the fukc did that political rant come from? Monopoly laws are in place to protect and promote an individual's ability to choose. Care to point out how Internet Explorer was any better or more innovative than Netscape Navigator?
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Old 01-07-2009, 12:21 AM   #18
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I thought the whole point of a Mac (and indeed, Apple's ads) was to avoid Windows? I mean, if you buy a Mac and end up (exclusively) running Windows on it, then you have lost the only advantage (if you want to call it that) the Mac had. Given how cheap you can build a great Windows machine for, the only reason you would buy a Mac is for the OS.

And while it's true, Apple may not care, I know the community sure does. Want to insult a Mac snob? Just tell them Vista runs great on your macbook. Or that you hackintoshed OS X onto your little netbook. [thumbup]
I wondered about that myself, it seems like mac is moving closer and closer to PC, from ditching their own cpu in favor of intel, to the surge of people using windows on them... whats the point anymore? Can kiss your "no virus and security problems" goodbye. Pretty soon they are going to be just another PC manufacturer with decent mp3 players on the side.
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Old 01-07-2009, 12:30 AM   #19
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Apples marketing must be good if you think DDR3 is better on a core 2 duo.

Especially when there is 50% less of it
Bargain prices though.

While shopping for a mac for my cousin last month -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...202/LOLRAM.png
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Old 01-07-2009, 12:36 AM   #20
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I predict we're gonna see some Windows 95 and Windows XP-quality advertisements for Windows 7 come later this year...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A_Kkb9w5bw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM0DL...eature=related

[thumbup]
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