I'm a PC, and I'm Worried About My ImageMicrosoft's $300 million campaign to prove Windows isn't lame.
Posted Monday, Sept. 29, 2008, at 4:08 PM ET
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StumbleUponWhat makes the new ads notable, of course, is their swagger. Microsoft has decided to fight Apple on its own turf, taking on the idea that Steve Jobs and co. are better, smarter, and hipper than everyone else. In business, taking a rival's ads too seriously is a risky gambit. In the 1980s, Coke famously responded to the "Pepsi Challenge" campaign—which showed that people prefer Pepsi in blind taste tests—by changing its formula. New Coke didn't work out so well. But unlike Coca-Cola, Microsoft needed to respond to Apple. Even if they are mean, Apple's ads seem to be working. While the Mac's market share still isn't close to that of Windows, Macs have seen faster sales growth than PCs in the last year, and Windows Vista, routinely panned in Apple's ads, is now routinely panned by a lot of people who haven't used it.
Even if they are a little saccharine, the core message of Microsoft's ads—that Apple is snooty—should resonate. That's because Apple is snooty. Here's a quote from Steve Jobs, circa the mid-1990s: "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste." Apple's corporate identity is built on that mind-set—on its supposed underdog exclusivity, on the idea that choosing a Mac is an act of noble rebellion against the totalitarian IBM-Microsoft regime. Apple has been very successful in cementing this image. I once asked Jason Snell, the editorial director of the company that publishes Macworld magazine, about the difference between people who buy Macs and people who buy Windows. No one buys Windows, he said. There are only Mac people: people who've consciously chosen to buy a computer for its differences. Folks who use Windows didn't choose to use Windows—they don't make any decision at all. They just took what everyone else had.
The last time I needed a new computer, I made my decision based on price, not operating system: A Dell was the cheapest machine I could find. (I'm not completely a Windows person; as a tech columnist, I switch computers often, and I've owned several Macs over the years.) Microsoft's new ads suggest that my kind of nondecision is OK. Being in the lazy majority is just fine because, hey, you study sharks, and that's pretty awesome. To be sure, inclusivity is a harder sell than exclusivity. "Hey, we're conformists!" just isn't as catchy as, "Hey, we're special and different!"
But perhaps the Windows hordes can rally around their shared annoyance at Apple's ads. After two years of seeing Justin Long's Mac tweak John Hodgman's PC, don't you want to grab him by the hoodie and tell him to get a real job? But getting annoyed at Apple isn't the same as rallying around Windows. As they are, Microsoft's new ads probably won't rehabilitate its image. Some adjustments are in order: Make the ads funnier, less serious, and more visually and stylistically appealing. Yes, make them more like the Apple ads. I'd also suggest expanding Gates' role: Once regarded as a corporate villain, he has morphed, over the years, into a saintly figure, and he makes for a very likable mascot for the firm.
But even though they need work, the new ads mark a good start. Microsoft isn't facing any sort of emergency. Its market share isn't plunging. What it needs is a slight adjustment of its image, a new gloss on an aging brand. If it persists with this campaign—goosing Apple for being exclusive, painting itself as not terribly out of touch—it might one day be cool to identify yourself as a PC.
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