Microsoft airs first TV ad for Surface tablet (with video)

Microsoft on Monday kicked off a $1 billion advertising campaign for Windows 8/RT featuring its Surface tablet on ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

“With the first Surface spot, Microsoft focused on the “clicking” noise made when a user attaches the tablet’s magnetic keyboard-cum-cover, as well as the soft snapping sound heard when the unit’s kickstand is opened and closed,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider. “Taking more than a little inspiration from successful iPod commercials, the ad features a troupe of dancers who manipulate the device to create a drum break-like beat that slowly builds to a crescendo of feverish clicking and snapping.”

Campbell reports, “Not much is shown off in the way of device specs, or even the ARM-based Windows RT version of Microsoft’s new operating system powering the Surface.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Zunetastic!

90% of iPad user we talk to use their iPads most while reclined in a chair or on a sofa. Microsoft should have asked iPad users where they use their iPads most and they wouldn’t have wasted time on that kickstand. Microsoft named the thing “Surface,” because you need a large flat surface upon which to set up your superfluous keyboard and use your dumbass kickstand.

The whole thing — the dorks-trying-way-too-hard TV spot, the kickstand and its click, the unnecessary rubber keyboard, the “VaporMg” paint job, Windows 8/RT, Microsoft and, of course, their CEO — are all just woefully off target and painfully stupid.

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102 Comments

    1. Yes Microsoft ads do cost much more $$ than Apple ads but ultimately ending up selling significantly less product. A billion dollars for not even 1% of the sales that Apple typically does.

  1. Some of the $1B was also spent on buying out all of the advertising in one (or more) of the SF BART stations. And the whole area inside the toll gates is a large pink square with the logo “Surface” in the center.

    Clearly part of the target market is commuters.

  2. That’s the most Surfaces we’ll ever see in one spot.
    Geez Microsoft the whole point is to work hard to not look like you’re working hard. This ad is trying way too much. It’s unusual to combine predictable with nonsensical, but you’ve succeeded.

  3. nothing is new in this product?!

    these MS asses can’t even think of not copying apple’s magnetic cover.

    the only innovation seems clicking noise?!

    how much longer can anyone take MS crap / insults?!

    reason the product sucks before lunch even:
    inbred!
    what an incestuous firm.
    they can’t think worth shit.
    abominable.

    MS® Another Failed Product for 10 Years Straight™

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