“Microsoft has kept people guessing about its so-called ‘iPod killer’ Zune, leaking bits of information at a time,” Stan Beer writes for iTWire. “One thing is clear. If Microsoft is to have any chance of success greater than zero pitting Zune against iPod, it needs its own online music store. The question on everyone’s lips is does it have one in the pipeline? The question on my lips is that what the commercial on YouTube is about? Is Alexandria Microsoft’s answer to iTunes? If so, does this change the ball game?”
Microsoft’s “Alexandria” video:
Beer writes, “The question remains, however, why would iPod and iTunes users move across? There has to be a compelling reason.”
“It’s going to be a tough sell coming into a market that you’ve never played in before against a competitor who has it all. Apple has dominant market share, experience with the business model, design expertise and the image that fits the market,” Beer writes. “This is not to say that Microsoft cannot enter the market but if the company expects to come in knock over Apple by sheer marketing brute force then it’s going to take time, loads of money and it has to have something clearly superior to the iPod and iTunes package.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “mrmikey” for the heads up.]
You just know that every actor in that video happily went home to their Macs while listening to their iPods.
Related articles:
In wake of Zune, Microsoft ‘partners’ consider abandoning PlaysForSure – July 25, 2006
Wi-Fi seen limiting battery life on Microsoft’s Zune – July 24, 2006
Why Microsoft’s Zune is doomed to fail – July 24, 2006
Bear Stearns analyst expects Apple to respond to Microsoft’s ‘challenge’ with new iPod innovations – July 24, 2006
Microsoft Zune? They should’ve called it the Microsoft ‘iClod’ – July 24, 2006
Enderle: Microsoft’s ‘iPod killer’ Zune is ‘brilliant strategy’ – July 24, 2006
Microsoft’s so-called ‘iPod killer’ Zune won’t zoom up the charts – July 23, 2006
Microsoft confirms ‘iPod Killer’ plans – July 21, 2006
Microsoft’s rumored ‘iPod killer’ poses little threat to Apple’s domination – July 18, 2006
Microsoft plans Super Bowl ad for ‘iPod killer’ – July 17, 2006
Sounds serious: Microsoft approaches iPod accessory makers for Zune would-be ‘iPod killer’ – July 12, 2006
Microsoft preps complete line of Xbox-branded digital-media products – July 11, 2006
Photo of Microsoft’s ‘iPod killer?’ – July 11, 2006
10 reasons why Microsoft’s ‘iPod killer’ will fail – July 11, 2006
Enderle on what it would take for Microsoft to kill Apple’s iPod – July 10, 2006
Microsoft: ‘iPod killer’ reports based on ‘speculation and rumors’ – July 07, 2006
Can Microsoft hit a fast moving target? Apple likely to debut wireless iPod this year – July 07, 2006
Analysts: Microsoft faces uphill fight to supplant Apple’s iPod+iTunes market dominance – July 07, 2006
Microsoft plans to convert iPod users by replacing iTMS songs with free WMA format songs – July 06, 2006
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Analyst Wu: Microsoft unlikely to dethrone Apple iPod+iTunes – June 21, 2006
Microsoft preps iPod+iTunes killer – June 19, 2006
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Microsoft, Toshiba, DoCoMo, Victor to develop Japan iPod+iTunes killer – June 02, 2006
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Apple patent application filed for wireless iPod+iTunes distribution – May 04, 2006
Generator Research: Apple to Ship $4.2bn in Wireless iPods (WiPods) by 2010 – March 14, 2006
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Wireless Apple iPods coming in 2006? – December 09, 2005
More blood on Apple iTunes Music Store’s play button: MyCokeMusic is dead – June 20, 2006
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More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Sony’s Walkman Bean is cooked – February 13, 2006
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Apple’s iTunes Music Store has blood on its play button: BuyMusic.com is dead – March 28, 2004
Wow, that was sure convincing. I’m placing my advance order now…
ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Here’s the problem for Microsoft in a nutshell. The iTunes Music Store has sold well over one billion songs and 35 million videos. And a grand total of zero of those will play on a Zune.
People are simply not going to totally abandon their purchased music and video libraries and start all over again.
There has never been a microsoft product that generated the kind of wonder, interest, and amazement that this video portrayed. This would take a applesque effort to achieve what they have suggested here. I doubt MS has it in them to accomplish anything like this.
A 2 minute ad?!?!?! Man, I hope this one doesn’t play very often on my shows.
The end of the ad says “Summer 2006”. They are running out of time.
I think we’re getting caught in the Microsoft overhype web. MDN, don’t forget that WWDC is less than 2 WEEKS away!
Patience=Virtue
Sorry, fellaz. But that video was also “leaked” at the time of all that crap hype about “Origami” a few months back.
That’s just a video produced by an ad firm under contract by MSFT. May not have anything at all to do with an iPod/Tunes killer.
Title of video and song, “And when the world turns into geeks”. Available in the iTunes store today.
Microsoft can never be hip no matter how hard they try. The brunette in that video is pretty hot though, I will give them that, and only that.
wow…an ambiguous commercial for a product that doesn’t exist. anyone else as excited as I am?
I have seen other versions of this story before. I am pretty sure the kid at the end of the video is the one who points out that the Emperor Has No Clothes.
So, if Microshaft can air a 2 minute ad, why can’t Apple? Why can’t Apple create a 2 minute ad that shows some of the wonderful things that you can do with a Mac? Just as they created a series of “I”m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads, they should create a series of ads that show everything from working in the OS with Spotlight and Exposé, to working in Garage Band, to all of the iLife apps, and finally to booting up Windows if necessary. Air those puppies and I think you’d get more converts than the current run.
Jimbo out.
Good music choice, any ideas about title and artist?
Interesting commercial. The issue remains, however, overcoming Apple’s huge lead.
Microsoft must be prepared to spend a huge amount of cash advertising this thing, in order to garner any share at all
Microsoft will spend the money because this isn’t about music share. Its about standards. iTunes is the industry standard for obtaining internet music. As long as Apple controls the standard, Microsoft will be relegated to #2. Microsoft can’t afford to allow this to happen. It weakens Microsoft’s grip on other standards when consumers learn that there are non-Microsoft technologies that are better.
Its a slippery slope kind of deal, and Microsoft is fighting to get off that slpe.
Don’t really give a damn about that Zune thingy, but that one chick with the dark hair an olive skin is kind of hot. I’d trade in my iPod to tap that.
Microsoft Translator:
Summer 2006 = Spring 2015 (give or take 2 years)
Ok that was the most boring thing I’ve ever seen. I wanted to close the window before I even got halfway through.
I could just hear the director of that video now. “Ok everyone, look curious”.
if the add was made on a mac like microsofts last xp campaign?
Welcome to Microsoft Daily News 😀
…and the kid at the end is a rip off of the kid at the end of the Mazda car ad except he doesn’t say “zoom zoom”. Unoriginal ad.
Infiniti Anyone?
Recall the original Infiniti Car Luxury car ads?
You never saw the car. Just waves, and a great British voice over. Finally, when Infiniti unveiled the car people were saying “What?… That’s the car? That’s what this hype was about?”
It completely backfired. If this truly is MS’s gameplan, they are taking a page from history and are about to brick.
Never, never, never, give your product or service over to one’s imagination – as the revealed solution can never meet the lofty self-envisoned expectations the company has built into one’s mind.
Quickly!!!
Dvorak, PC Mag, and Analysts everywhere, use this as sheer proof that MS is going to be late on a product they have never given a ship date for!
Seriously:
When this concept ad was created (a high-end concept at that), the target was for sometime in the summer of ’06 the Zune would be released. This is why it prints such…
The launch date has obviously been pushed back to the fall, as this Summer ’06 no longer applies.
I’m getting sick of these marketing videos and commercials that make it seem as if there’s this world full of extremely young, always beautiful, highly intelligent people out there sharing ideas, being creative, solving problems, etc.
SHOW US THE TRUTH!!!!!
Lots of mediocre looking young morons standing around in Best Buy saying “Duh, what’s USB?”
Lots of idiots that take the most important technology of the 21st century, the Internet, and use it for getting sex, watching porn, etc.
A never ending supply of mental midgets who thing YouTube is the 2nd coming.
And the rest, the drug addicts, the insane religions, the gangs, the child molesters, the serial killers, the disgusting United Nations, and on and on.
magic word = modern
If I were a betting man, I would say this is a deliberate, targeted attempt by Microsoft and its ad agency to create further buzz for the Zune.
Post the video on Youtube and get it moving throughout the youth populous.
* Zero advertising fees to major networks
* Creating buzz through sites like this one
* Keeping Zune on websites and people’s minds
Very smart advertising work.
in two words: creepy and tedious. I felt like I was trying to fend off brain washing.
that was the coolest microsoft commercial ever made. a definite improvement over cartoon drawings of astronauts and scientists, and the where do you want to go campaign
Yeah that’s about the only way to have people show interst in a MS product. Pay them to act that way.
Come on world. MS yet again is trying to make a product to do EVDERYTHING. Music, movies, wi-fi, and my favorite-
collaboration of your music lists.
Who the f*(k would use this?
MS is a hopeless company. They have never INVENTED anything.
There existence comes from monopoly status. And the status has frozen companies to it, or spend BILLIONS of dollars to switch. Not switch to Mac mind you. Switch to IBM, Sun or anyone. MS has companies by the balls, and that’s it. A repulsive, unimaginative monstrosity.
And Ballmer epitomizes the company perfectly. And it won’t change. Or it will after it collapses and rebuilt by inventive people wanting to make a product that serves a customer. Not a product that MAKES the customer not able to leave without spending a lot of money. Again.
Wake up people. Patronize any company but MS.
At least Microcrap is consitent… the commercial is long and complicated and takes forever to get to the point and ends leaving you feeling completely unsatisfied and not intrigued as the makers clearly would have hoped.
Is it just me of was David Koresh directing this!?
Everyone hypnotized by this “thing.” A gal is talking to a friend, and the one listening just tunes her out and walks away as she is sucked into the vortex…
People doing their work, needing to be productive, but a guy pulls out the “You are all slaves to me” device, and they are sucked in like bugs to light.
And of course the smart Indian boy walks in, understands and knows what this is, but is helpless against it’s pull as well…
Nice message MS – downright spooky.
This is an ad that a team on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice (is it 5 or 6 now?) came up with.
They obviously lost the competition.
Donald tells them in the Boardroom never to tie yourself to a deadline.
davida,
You were trying to fend off brain washing. How else is Microsoft going to get people to switch from iPod to Zune?
Oh, and people were watching, not listening and grooving.
Zune is obviously all about video.
Check out all the Hip, young people in that ad! One (guy) over 40 (pushing 60?) and one (gal) over 30 (over 35?) and the rest arguably 20-somethings. One (small) group is looking at a (?)15″(?) notebook screen while another (larger) crowd is (supposedly) looking at a smaller (cell phone? Blackberry?) screen.
davida and macromancer, it isn’t half bad if you sit back to analyze what they are doing and why. The graphics are good, the faces are pretty, there’s no real message – just expectation-building as in those early Infiniti ads Steven mentioned – along with a defining of the target audience. I’m sure Betting Man got it right with that cynical observation of their channel use – YouTube, let them pay for the ads themselves! And … their usual commercials wouldn’t play well to that audience.
If that’s the “Sizzle”, I don’t want to taste the Steak.
This has Origami written all over it.
IT’S EVERYWHERE MAN, IT’S EVERYWHERE!!!!
DL, if MS actually ever DELIVERED anything that was inspiring as this suggests, this sort of ad campaign would work. They don’t, so it’s all just fluff.
They may be trying to build anticipation of something, but for what it is, that ad is WAY too long.
Snooze.
I have absolutely no idea what the hell it was that I just watched.
If that is a legitimate Microsoft (legitimate and Microsoft in the same sentence – I should get money for that) commercial it taught me two things:
1) MS’ marketing department sucks just as bad as their R&D (ha,ha) and
2) there sure are a lot of ugly friggin’ people buying MS products.
Any more info concerning a Microsoft media player and i’m going to assume this isn’t a mac news site anymore
Boring!
I think the underlying graphics says it all:
Patchwork.
by the way, Microsloth, summer is almost over.
The people are “ready” but they keep waiting and waiting and waiting.
Maybe that’s the actual Vista Ship date on the screen they’re looking at.
You know, I was thinking about getting a white iPod video, but thanks to that commercial, I’m sold… I’m getting the black iPod video that that business dude was holding up and that all of those people were gathering around… the black one is indeed pretty cool.
Hunh,… it’s a Microsoft commercial? Hmm. whatever.
“…Unoriginal ad.”
You got that right. The first thing I thought of was the iTunes commercial from some time ago. The one with all the flipping album covers that expanded up and out to form buildings and a eventually a whole city.
I hope MS runs this. What a perfect, pathetic example of MS’s copycat unoriginality. And the whole world will be witness.
pathetic…
even the text/font used and overall look of the closing shots (gradual shading out at edges) look like something out of Apple advertising/graphics.
(noticed a lot of “reflections off black surfaces” look in recent ads lately too… the mutiple iChat “video conference” and iLife “reflections” themes look)
(sigh) Am I the only one who reads the comments before posting?
“JayBone” said: Sorry, fellaz. But that video was also “leaked” at the time of all that crap hype about “Origami” a few months back.
Presuming JayBone isn’t talking out his ass, this means the commercial is probably for something totally different. And that makes sense. Why the hell would anyone release a teaser ad for “Summer 2006” in late July???
But no one will read this. You’re all too busy scrolling down to feedback window to notice.
A tad long to say the least, but the idea of Plain-Jane matt-black brick has appeal, if it works properly.
Microsoft can do it right, as the excellent XBox shows.
Still, let’s see what new iPods Apple has for us first!
I’m just about to order a wireless Mighty Mouse, at least I will when Apple UK manages a working link in the online store…
Was that a Black MacBook?
DJ,
‘Microsoft can do it right, as the excellent XBox shows’
So losing billions on a piece of hardware to make a few bucks royalty on each piece of software that runs on it is your idea of doing it right?
Microsoft is going to be the first company in history to make money on the media download store after selling Zune hardware at a loss?
I believe you DJ, I really do.
That video’s rather long and boring…
…much like Microsoft.
It fits the pattern of all Microsoft’s other ads: We see lots of people gawking at the product or explaiming how great it is, or we hear a voiceover claiming it’ll change the world, but no information on what the hell it is or what it does.
The central message is always, “It doesn’t matter exactly what it does or how well it does it, but everybody else wants one so badly (see? there they are) it must be desirable and you should want one too.”
The trouble is (for Microsoft), that kind of message got its “proven track record” because it always used to work so well. So many people didn’t really understand new techo-gadgets anyway, and all they had to go on was hype, so seeing other people’s interest was all they had to go on.
Consumers are more sophisticated now. We know what we like. We know what it does. We own one, in fact, and we know exactly how it makes our lives better.
Isn’t this typicall Microsoft though, albeit this time aimed at the consumer.
This ad effectively says “don’t care about what it is, what it does, how it will change you…… you’ll just want it,….. and others probably will too” Also ” You will want one because other people will be interested and that will make you feel important.”
After all, it’s what others think that counts right
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I personally loved the apple silouette ads by TBWA. It showed one person immersed in the music and expressing their feeling through dance, distanced to the outside world. The self confidence to choose something for you, not for others.
I think the guy at the end of the ad holding the “device” away from him is really thinking “Man, did I really spend 400 bucks on this thing?”
David Low…
Thats weird… your comments weren’t there when I started to write this!
Only noticed it through reading other comments in more depth, and seeing if mine had been posted!
Agree with the comments about it being too long & missing the point.
KISS
This is a re-post of a funny example showing how MS might “improve” on the iPod’s packaging.
man they really are copying apple
A WHOLE COMMERCIAL with out once showing the product
Gruber on Daringfireball has a great piece on the zune (I refuse to capitalize it because I’m spiteful like that sometimes).
Worth the read.
Why are people in Germany in the 30s all looking at some dude’s laptop?
Quick send in the woman with red shorts and a sledge hammer to free all those drones before they are sucked in!!!
Where are the people w/ the dinosaur heads?
I WANT TO SEE SOME DINOSAUR HEADS!!!! 😀
How will Microsoft get people’s attention? Not with a superior product (which will be inferior to iPods and maybe even iriver players) Microsoft is a “that’s good enough now ship it” company. They’ll build a user base the same way they always do, they’ll buy their way in and strong arm anyone who gets in their way out. Remember the XBox introduction. Microsoft sold the original units at a loss of almost $200 so they could sell enough units to reach critical mass. Now, what would a billion free songs do to kick off their music player/web store introduction? Microsoft always sells to the price only, cheapie customer and low/free prices will create a user base, regardless of the product quality. Apples sold a billion songs, Microsoft could do that in a month with free music (provided their crappy store portal doesn’t break at a volume like that, fingers double crossed). Do keep in mind that in additions to free song Microsoft will always price their music for slightly less then what ever Apple charges. They will buy in big time because they can’t afford to concede this market (DRM) to another vendor and risk getting locked out of multimedia in the future the way they’re locked out of the iPod music/movie juggernaut right now.