“Microsoft Corp., engrossed in multi-million dollar marketing blitz to counter… rival Apple, Inc., is now using a portion of its budget to fuel guerilla retail tactics near the Mac maker’s stores,” Sam Oliver reports for AppleInsider.
“AppleInsider reader [Tom submitted a] photo, which shows a large Microsoft-branded kiosk parked outside a shopping center-based Apple retail store,” Oliver reports.
“‘It’s a friggin booth where you can record your own ‘I’m a PC’ video,’ he said. ‘This is outside the Apple Store, Bullring, Birmingham, England.’ He added that a trio of Microsoft staffers will be on hand to turn patrons off from the Mac for the next three days,” Oliver reports.
Oliver reports, “Last month, Microsoft tapped advertising firm Crispin Porter & Bogusky to use Apple’s assault as a foundation for a direct counter-strike with its own series of ‘I’m a PC’ ads. As part of the campaign, Microsoft invited visitors to its website to upload videos and photos that demonstrate ‘how they, too, are PCs.’ The company has since select a handful of those clips for inclusion in television commercials that can be seen airing on network television this week.”
More in the full article, with larger photo, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kendon” for the heads up.]
Typical pseudo-rebelliousness from Crispin Porter & Bogusky. What a sham. Somebody really should tell Microsoft that Macs can not only say “I’m a Mac,” but they can also easily also say “I’m a PC,” too. Better yet, “shhh!” Let them go. $300 million more flushed down the toilet.
Vista-erasing/XP-loading HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony et al. can’t be happy that Microsoft is stupidly going this route and helping to expose their PCs as OS-limited to the world.
Only Apple’s OS-unlimited Macs can run it all.
Anyone exiting an Apple Store has every right to go into that booth and explain why they’re a “PC,” too. Just say something like:
• I’m a PC, too because Microsoft locked somebody in somewhere with something along the line and now I am forced to pollute my pristine Mac with Windows in order to access some random program that my long-retired boss had some geek write in 1996 that my company sees no reason to ever update; or
• Because I want to play a game that some shortsighted developer decided to make Windows-only (even though Mac users have more disposable income and are proven to actually pay for more software).
Those are the only two reasons, besides plain ignorance, why people ever boot Windows.
You know those Apple logo stickers they put in every box? You know what to do.
Shameless coffee mug plug: In a world without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows? (Get one today – it’s an especially great gift for IT guys!)
