The “Zune Insider Blog,” from Cesar Menendez, a Microsoft employee working on Microsoft’s new music project, “Zune,” has posted five TV commercials for Zune that, in our opinion, further pave the way to Zune’s inevitable failure. These five spots all fail on many levels. They are boring, overly obtuse, try way too hard to be “with it,” and fail to inspire any feeling whatsoever of wanting or needing a Zune. These are not good ads. This is not a good advertising campaign. This whole Zune thing is shaping up to become quite the debacle. Zune is “MS Bob” for the 20 Aughts.
We asked our own SteveJack (16-year TV vet) to watch the ads and comment. SteveJack said, “Awful. Truly awful. Where do you want to squirt today?™ When will the rest of the world finally see that Microsoft is a failure masquerading as a success?”
As we’re fond of asking, “What’s brown and squirts?”
Picnic (90-second spot):
Battle (60-second spot):
Concert (30-second spot):
Dog Scratch (15-second spot):
Couple (15-second spot):
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “mango” for the heads up.]
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Those commercials are incredibly boring … and what’s with the dogs …
They almost remind me of the first artsy car and perfume commercials from the early nineties. Hard to tell what it’s about. That will appear to some, I suppose because it’s “like totally counterculture, man…”
“… Dude…
They’re… how do you say… “earthy” – as opposed to the slickness of Apple’s iPod commercials. Not sure about what this says about the product…
wow those are HORRIBLE.
I mean I was kinda impressed with the xbox 360 commercials but these real suck on so many levels, maybe it is a targeted market thing and I am not with it but still, yuck.
also really you need to stop with the whole brown and squirts thing it is just really repulsive.
funny, but please stop
This is just really poor marketing.
Many viewers who are not paying particular attention (which will be most…they are ads, after all) will probably unconciously see iPods. Thanks, Microsoft!
Compare that to the original iPod commercial where he is listening on the Computer, then leaves the apartment with the iPod on…high energy, looks like it is fun.
these people look bored and the music tracks are slow and painful.
Why would you bring your Zune to a concert? Wouldn’t you want to hear the artist perform?
These have no cool factor. The only people that will notice these and sit through them will be grandparents. I guess they may need an mp3 player. Seriously I hate the slogan “Welcome to the social”. MS sux, they will sell some but will never get any marrketshare from Apple. They will beat out the small timers and that is it.
What we’re there is the world gathering of Zune owners.. All of them. They think it’s great that they can squirt at each other. And there you have the loser that DIDN’T buy a Zune, but got into the action by picking up his dog and squirting someone else. Works the same way for the same purpose I guess…
This is actually foreshadowing…
Zune owners will have to put ads in papers, craigslist, and blogs to get people all in one area so that they can squirt music at
eachother. Because they will never run into eachother in the wild.
And even if you did see some one huddled over their Zune on the bus, would you really want to get close enough to be able to share music with someone hunched up in a ball trying to watch a movie on what, from fifteen feet away, looks like he’s coveting a dog turd?
Very un-cool
I have to admit that the white one looks nice but these things are massive.
My 30GB 5G ipod is probably only half the size of the Zune.
It will fail because of the size
Not much connection between the onscreen action and the product. What a horrible color scheme for the commercials and the product – ick!
Objectively these commercials come across as trying real hard to be hip, cool, whatever. Typical MS corn. I don’t see these commercials inspiring anybody to buy the Zune, but perhaps the real question for MS is, will they actually inhibit anyone from the Zune?
BTW the new ipod Nano commercials are a lot better
No cool factor
I loved the whole grandparents thing! Ha, ha, ha!
I watched all of them. That’s 12.5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. (After the dog scratching one I had to take a shower)
Interesting.
What I noticed was how many transitions there were. The video was fast paced. So fast that you loose track of what’s happening. There’s no single story, just a bunch of people. Take these ads and compare to the iPod ads and see how it’s different. In the iPod ads, Apple uses very few people, and much better visuals.
Do you remember that spoof on if Microsoft marketed the iPod? The one where they over did the packaging. Well, it looks like it’s coming true, at least for the TV spots, so far.
oh…. come on. just think about it second. when you listen to music, nobody like commmercial especially with compact mp3 player. plus, the wilress share music is not going to happen like you expect. it’s wasted. commercials are just wrong. even when you are with lover, or girl friend, will you put earbud on your ears? if she talks to you? total concept of socialization is missed for what kind of product commercial. they’re all like PBS AD.
Don’t think much of the dogs bottom sniffing in the first one.
And amateur video is meant to be cool now is it?
Shoddy, uncool, like the product, like the company.
DOA.
Welcome to the Social. What?
I can’t even be bothered to really comment and go into on what’s wrong with those ads and what they’re trying to sell this wifi functionality as being.
I thought they were commercials to try and bring back the grunge movement. I like most here was completely confused. I dont even want to waste time watching them again to try and find out what they mean.
Who wants to take bets that Microshaft will “take a page”(maybe the whole book) from Apple’s playbook on commercials:
“Hello, I’m a Zune. And I’m an iPod…”
I’m not sure how much “brown squirting” they can do on prime time TV, but it might just work
“Welcome to the social…”
…disease.
They’re good enough commercials, definitely appeal to the younger crowd (though I don’t know the last time me and my friends breakdanced in the middle of a park…)
The problem?
They’re only showing one feature… sharing.
And really, what else differentiates this player from the iPod?
When the iPod was released, it had a whole bunch of new features, and it continues to build on them today. The Zune? Only has the wireless sharing feature to call its own, and it’s fragile at best, considering terms of use and other people using Zunes.
Good try, though. It’s going to be interesting, nonetheless…
Picnic: Love the beastiality innuendos. Yes real dog balls, licking. Lots of crotch shots and typical American style, no pussy to be found for miles except for the one licking and foreplaying the dog. No wonder so many of you yanks are off to war. They should make an Iraq commercial for Zune.
Battle: Yup, people prefer vynil and live rock concerts except for the two losers who can’t get inside and have to listen to Zune. Love the “Seig Heil” symbolism and the total lack of pussy on the stage.
Concert: I see two girls got those zunes from the losers in the battle commercial. They try it, then one climbs on stage to be with a live musicians. Now there is a winner (she dropped the Zune for someone who can crank out a tune).
Dog Scratch: I sure got the message, “find your audience” the zune should go well with gay dog f**kers.
Couple: Now this is a powerful commercial. What will the guy (obviously a soldier cause of the hat) do???? Stay with the blind babe or go to war to Iraq. Decisions decisions, will he be able to take his Zune there?
Great commercials, with a lot of appeal to the market they are targeting, hoping to win the battle and kill the enemy. At least we know that if the Zune doesn’t sell well the enrollments to Iraq will go waaaaaaay up.
The only one I got was the one with the dog. All the others barely even show or relate to the product.
4 out of 5 stink. I hope MS paid a lot for them. I agree with ‘me’ abou the bringing an mp3 player to a concert….kinda stupid eh? I actually liked the dog one…perhaps it is because I love dogs…or perhaps it was because you don’t see a Zune in it.
These are absolutley horrible. Terrible marketing, and you can barely see the Zune brand at the end….
Most people will catch them out of the corner of their eye and say “hm – those new iPod ads aren’t so good, are they?”
The soundtrack of the first on ends with “I don’t care what kind of drugs you’re on.” Strange, but somehow appropriate.
After being a designer and art director of 20+ years, I can categorically confirm that these ads are absolute crap.
Do people actually hang out, hug and kiss while listening to music through earphones? Isn’t that kind of anti-social?
Assuming you are British, as I am, you do a great job of making us look like real tossers. Just listen to yourself and tone yourself down. Idiot.
More scatological references.
Reverse psychology, anyone?
A little off-topic (it’s just that these commericals were so… yaaawwnnn… boring), but has anyone noted that MS Windows Media Player 11 imports a person’s complete iTunes library (minus the DRM-protected audio) without even asking? A little over the top, I think.
Typical MS ads..
Have you ever seen a MS ad that didn’t include EVERYBODY?!?! MS tries to be inclusive by showing every stripe of person on the earth…and like today’s radio, ends up pleasing everybody for a small slice of time, but pleasing nobody for a long slice of time.
Same with MS stuff…. too many people… the gunshot approach, so it never makes a direct hit on anyone.
I work in the consumer marketing field–and I think these ads are truly awful.
A cringe-inducing level of awful.
Really? Uh, they seem like what somebody’s parents would think is cool. The equivalent of saying “groovy”.
I was very unimpressed with the few shots of people huddled around each pointing their Zunes at each other and craning their necks to see the playlists of the other Zunes. I don’t know how this shit-brick works (the brown looks just as shitty on video as in stills), but wouldn’t it make sense to be able to at least SEE the libraries of other Zunes on your Zune? That way, you could request someone to “squirt” you… Not sure if MS realizes this, but “social” and actually being face to face are not the same thing to the generation that they are presumably marketing to – virtual connection is more important (see, IM, txting, myspace, etc).
What’s with the dogs? I believe in focus groups, dogs came out as the target demographic.
Last, those earbuds are very 1983, but unfortunately lack any element of retro-cool. It’s like MS got a bunch of free airline earbuds and tacked on some aluminum. OOOH! How very XPS! I know, that’s Dell, but same design ethic.
What a waste of bandwidth!!!!
maybe George Bush would like “the social”, after all he does use “the Google”
p.s. re Picnic, first we see some dogs, then something brown appears…
Makes the iPod Ads look cold and antiseptic!
As an American, I thought your comments were hysterical.
They look a bit, well… forced, you know, kind of… vague.
To me it seems they were produced by people who have little or no understanding of the target audience.
They’re not quite sure what they want, so they shove as much irrelevant images at the potential buyer in the hope that something sticks.
They also remind me of the KFC adverts that run in the UK.
Totally US-centric (not that this is a bad thing, but they won’t travel well, not like the iPod adverts), so you’ll either run them overseas anyway and they won’t work (just like the KFC ads in the UK), or re-brand in other countries which is expensive, messy and badly focused.
It’s very obvious Microsoft are really trying, they just don’t get it.
A bad product, which has bad core technology, and advertising that’s trying its hardest to make the most of a meagre offering.
They’ll probably sell a few dozen.
“The soundtrack of the first on ends with “I don’t care what kind of drugs you’re on.” Strange, but somehow appropriate.”
What a catch. Kinda like Microsoft using “Start me up” by the Stones. They had to cut the “you make a grown man cry” out of the song.
Yea, guess you’d have to be on some kinda drugs to really like the Zune.
Yeah, all those ads for iPods are going to be blown away by an ad that ends with a dog sniffing his balls!
Oh, I’m soooooo scared! I give up! Bill Gates, you win!
NOT!
Bozos
Steve.
The Official Jim Verdict:
SHITE
Squirt that up ya backside Ballmer!
It looks like MS is trying to be the anti-ipod with these commercials. The iPod campaign is clean crisp and trendy while the Zune looks to be going for the holdouts of the grunge rock group from the 90s. So, I suppose I can see where they are going with it but they don’t show what they are trying to sell. If you watch the commercial and have no idea what the product it what was the point of MS spending the advertising dollars. These commercials are just really bad.
How long until some of our iPod lovers out there spoof the commercials? I can see the same music playing with people dressed the same having problems getting their Zunes to connect. Then another one with problems of getting the device to work properly with WMP 11. No doubt someone will be having fun with iMovie as soon as the Zunes come out and the problems start to appear.
I know I should wait for the product to be released before I pass judgment but given the track record for MS products I am not having a whole lot of faith in their ability to deliver quality.
Ahh…the ads aren’t that bad. I like the music in the first one, and the concert one has one of my fave bands Eagles of Death Metal (boys what are you doing in a MS commercial???!!!).
The thing is I don’t understand is exactly why you would carry a Zune to a social gathering. If you’re at a big party in the park you want speakers, if you’re at a rock show you want to hear the band, if you’re at a battle you want to hear the rappers. It’s social. You want to talk and interact not put on headphones and cut yourself off.
So I guess the ads are bad after all because they just confuse me.
(Dog… a man’s best friend – geddit?)
“You’re never alone with a Zune”
wow, those pretty much sucked
ALOT
Maybe all those people with their dogs hanging out at the park wait for the dog zunes to come out. I guess that is where the zune marketplace is.
Hey what’s wrong with you guys?
We showed the ads to His Baldness Ballmer and he absolutely liked them. He started to jump up & down furiously shouting “ZUNE ZUNE ZUNE ZUNE”.
We all left the meeting room and everyone could still hear “ZUNE ZUNE ZUNE ZUNE….” for at least 15 minutes more.
What’s wrong with you guys?
I’ve just watched ‘Social” and won’t bother with the rest.
Maybe it’s a Microsoft in-joke that they’re using Apples ‘dancing silhouettes’ and fleshing them out with the hip-hop dancers (taking a break from their usual guns ‘n’ ho’s ?).
As with the dogs – well, if you have your Zune with you, you’ll never be short of an heavy, immovable object to tie your dog to to stop it running away…
Are they selling some kind of medication?
A.D.D.? Constipation? Depression? Allergy?
Sleep Disorders, that’s it!
Is there ANYTHING social about listening to music with headphones?
When I want to block everything out… THAT’s when I plug in the ‘phones.
Oh yeah, I go to a party wearing headphones.
I hang out with my GF wearing headphones… she’d KILL me if I tried it!
I go to a concert wearing headphones.
Uh huh.
Maybe I take a crap wearing headphones… Zune it.
The dog one was the funny. I think he was trying to get the Zune out of his ears.
The music is fabulous, too! All droning suburban white boy crap.
Is ANYone at Microsoft AWAKE?
zzzzzzzzzz
Oh. MY. GOD.
Who approved those ads?
They are absolutely AWFUL.
I don’t even know what product they’re selling!
I don’t even know what they’re trying to say!
And to top it off — they’re boring!
Looks like it’s gonna be a horrible Christmas for Microsoft… and they deserve it!
Here’s a fun vote: (currently standing at 37% is “MS shouldn’t bother, Zune can’t win”)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=3842
By the way, how many people do you know who wirelessly share their business cards via their Palm Pilots? Maybe you’ve done it yourself… ONCE or TWICE in your entire life?! People just don’t want to wirelessly share their music with each other.
I remember when the iPod first came out they really marketed the “dual” earphone splitter so two people could listen to the iPod at once.
I think they discovered people weren’t really interested in that because they dropped that all together. They don’t even talk about that anymore.
I’ve had an iPod for 4 years and I have never once really, really needed to have someone listen to a song on it. My niece shares a lot of music (she’s 22) but that is far more a status and social thing as she shares enture libraries that she doesn’t ever het a chance to listen to. She would have no interest in a 2 day borrowing of a song wirelessly.
There was absolutely no need for Microsoft to enter this market and its further evidence that Microsoft’s success has been moree accidental than deliberate.
Finding a fellow Zune owner to share a squirt with will be as tough as me trying to find another iSight/iChat owner to video conference with.
I’m pretty suprised MS didn’t ship it with white earphones since they try to copy everything else apple does?
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Though maybe they did try to copy the whit earbuds and ended up with a brown player instead
CRAP they are all CRAP!
If you want some insight to Microsoft’s marketing strategy scroll down the page and click on each ad really fast to play them simultaneously. The resulting cacophony is what Bill hears in his head when thinking about the future.
“Awful. Truly awful. Where do you want to squirt today?™ When will the rest of the world finally see that Microsoft is a failure masquerading as a success?” – SteveJack
Bwahahahaha!
The commercials were brown. The music was brown. The player is brown. The dog was brown, the actors were a politically correct mixture of various ethnic groups.
Is the zune marketing demographic blacks and hispanics?
Am I just a redneck Canadian?
Inquiring minds want to know.
enough with the tatoos already
The slogan: “Welcome to the social” will appeal to a lot of people particularly the younger generation. If they can get that into people’s minds, it will make a difference. People may begin to associate the Zune with social and the iPod as being alone. People are social creatures (look at myspace) and want to be in touch with other people. This doesn’t neccessarily mean that the Zune will make them more social, but ads are all about making impressions. If this social/unsocial sticks, it will affect the sale of iPods and Zunes.
Make fun of them all you want, but MS will throw massive money into this project. They do not want Apple to continue to be the media king. I hope that the Zune fails miserably, but that will be seen in the coming months.
EVERYBODY:
A ha AH HAHAHAHHAHAHHAH HAH HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!
Oh Emm Gee. I think I threw up a little.
Okay, now that we’ve seen the brown squirting, let’s review…
Zune Aads above, compared to Apple’s Lightshow:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/ads/
I’ll wait.
Okay, you back? Good.
The Zune ads will not hold the attention of any 17 year olds I know.
I promise.
The not visually appealing, they’re not emotional, and they don’t look like any actual group of people that anyone has ever seen.
They’re forced.
The Lightshow ad is simple, visually stunning, and most importantly…
don’t pretend not to be commercials.
There is also another level to it that people who aren’t 17 and have never heard of raves will not get. (*plur*) But as far as the demographic goes, it’s spot on.
Kids are a whole lot smarter than Microsoft thinks they are.
Let’s watch. ^_^
-c
MW: ‘most’ (people live lives of quiet desperation.)
P.S. – I saw this on a t-shirt in the early 90’s, and for some reason I just thought of it…
“Double your Hard Disk Space. Delete Windows!”
The last one makes the least sense to me. There’s no better way to get close to your woman than by sharing the same headphones. I believe there was an episode of The Office featuring an iPod making precisely this point.
The strapline “welcome to the social” is grating. It makes me think of an ice cream social. Hey MS! How about “Zune: get social” or “let’s get social” or some such thing. You can have those for free.
Whateva, this is a bunch of Apple fanboys so there’s not gonna be any real critique here, is there? I think the “feel” of the commercials is great. They had to find a different angle, and THEY DID. Fortunately for Apple when they show the Zune, all is lost, because those things is ugly. And the Zunes logo sucks too.
I totally agree with PeterJ. No one ever takes his player to a concert or a picnic. People use them while sitting in the bus or waiting(!!!) for a friend or when they are out for a run. But who wants to carry this big thing when running up a hill? Most people buy a nano or a shuffle or (at least in Germany) some small, cheap no-name player to use with lanyard headphones for sports. Why? Because you don’t want to be interrupted but have your me-time. Nothing social about that.
They really are mischaracterizing the way the sharing feature works, aren’t they? If I didn’t know better, I would assume that the sharing feature meant that it would transmit your current song in *real time* to the person you’re sharing it with.
That’s what I’d want, anyway.
I’d want to listen to the song *with* the person, like it seems these people are.
But that’s not the way it works… you just squirt all over your friend and then it’s up to her to sync up with you. But you can’t really ‘sync’, you can just maybe hit play at the same time. You’re not in the same audio space… you’ve become isolated because now you just have 2 audio players with the same music on them. If people really wanted to do it this way they already can, they could just put the same stuff on their iPods. But, by and large, they don’t. Wonder why.
I’m tellin’ ya people.
Barad Dur.
It’s going to be glorious when it falls.
-c
MW: ‘turned’ (to the dark side. they had cookies.)
How very 90s
I’m trying to be objective and view them as an average Joe would. Unfortunately, as a 34 year old male, i find absolutely nothing inspiring about these ads. They do however, resemble the lo-fi look of some current MTV videos I’ve seen lately… Am I just too old to get them? I don’t know, maybe teenagers will relate to them differently.
Wow, this is enough material to do a marketing thesis on what-not-to-do.
Where to begin?
I won’t.
“Nobody cares what you can do”!!! INDEED!!!!
Nobody wants Steve Ballmer’s kiddy porn squirting at us.
I can’t believe the Zunes are shown on the ground. Quick, what’s the website of that blogger that had the picture of the dog crapping as the desktop picture for the Zune? The kid with the Hindenburg/Zune graphic?
Hilarious.
Kudos to whatever iPod/Mac users that intentionally sabotaged this marketing effort. You just know that, as bad as the ads are, Macs were involved somewhere.
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Somebody should do a parody of people holding actual bricks.
That’s what they look like ugly bricks with a screen.
As a former practicioner of marketing, I actually think the ads are effective. They do what advertising can do, focus on a simple proposition–here it’s sharing, the “point of differentiation”. (An ad doesn’t have to be artistically “good” to be effective.) There may be issues with the real value of this “point of differentiation”, but that’s the product’s fault, not the marketing.
It’s also effectively positioned against Apple as non-glamorous, non-stylish. Portland to Apple’s New York. That’s smart–appeal to those who are pre-disposed to NOT buy an ipod.
After being a mac user for, well, forever, I’m really enjoying the irony of the total role reversals here… MS the scrappy new kid working so hard for at best a puny share. Taking on the ipod empire which goes from the Shuffle to Nike to compatibility with 70% of autos. And if squirting takes off–Apple can just copy it!
And there’s a lot more to marketing and branding than ads. This market is Apple’s to lose, not Microsoft’s to win.
They are very boring ads. Unless you know about the sharing feature, or that it is an mp3 player, I’m not sure if you would “get” these commercials. The idea in the last commercial would be fine, except that the battery life will probably cut your love life short.
OMG!!!!!!!! THOSE COMMERCIAL ARE THE CRAPPIEST ONES I’VE EVER SEEN!!!!!!!????
I mean.. who would buy that crap???!!!
80 % of it doesn’t even make any sense?
the last 20 % is just crappy ripoff….
M$ – get a life!
I can’t believe how much dog anus is in the first ad. Is that like 3 seconds almost? In ad-time that is eons.
And the dog anus is more visible than the actual Zunes are.
Or maybe they want the Zune to be non-iconic! Yeah, that’s it!
iPods induce theft and violence. Zunes will be brick-like so that no one will mug you for one. Ever.
That’s some good spin. I should work in D.C.
https://www.zune-arts.net/
I should like two note the two major problems in these ads that are factual, sure the cinemaphotography is “indie” looking and the dogs have nothing to do PMPs, the major issues i see are this. the fact that the likely hood of that many people with zunes being in the same place and should you manage to get two zunes in a room there is no way that they would be able to play at the same time regaurdless of sharing you cant really play song on two players at the same time I have tried, you will end up off time.
interestingly I thought the dog one was best it reminded me off the first iPod commercial, that and there were no zunes in it.
They actually makes me wanna watch the iPod commercials…
These commercials will only remind me that I need to get up off the couch, take a piss, and get another beer out of the fridge in time for the second half.
The first one just shows just what a brown thick brick it is several time from the side and then flashes at the end its best angle, which is not even close to the iPod.
The music is beatleesque, which appeals to 40 plus.
The one with the dog make no sense, conscious or sub-conscios.
Somehow, somewhere, the ad needs to focus on the product for sale…it seems to sell the Zune Logo moreso than the Zune player. This will only increase iPod sales.
Road Warrior wrote:
Picnic: Love the beastiality innuendos. Yes real dog balls, licking. Lots of crotch shots and typical American style, no pussy to be found for miles except for the one licking and foreplaying the dog. No wonder so many of you yanks are off to war. They should make an Iraq commercial for Zune.
Battle: Yup, people prefer vynil and live rock concerts except for the two losers who can’t get inside and have to listen to Zune. Love the “Seig Heil” symbolism and the total lack of pussy on the stage.
Concert: I see two girls got those zunes from the losers in the battle commercial. They try it, then one climbs on stage to be with a live musicians. Now there is a winner (she dropped the Zune for someone who can crank out a tune).
Dog Scratch: I sure got the message, “find your audience” the zune should go well with gay dog f**kers.
Couple: Now this is a powerful commercial. What will the guy (obviously a soldier cause of the hat) do???? Stay with the blind babe or go to war to Iraq. Decisions decisions, will he be able to take his Zune there?
Dude, I’m an American, and as other Americans have posted here, I don’t take offense at what you wrote either. In fact I think it’s hilarious.
I especially like this from your last one: “What will the guy (obviously a soldier cause of the hat) do???? Stay with the blind babe or go to war to Iraq. Decisions decisions, will he be able to take his Zune there?”
Good stuff.
This is all starting to come together. zune.net is up and running and gives the appearance of being full and robust, showcasing all of the features and benefits zune has to offer. FYI, zune.com was created by antonio nogales in 1998 and for all anyone knows, his site has been under construction ever since.
But the debut of zune is really good news for all of the microsoft faithful who finally have a playa to call their own and there will be rejoicing in the streets. After five years of watching Apple make their presence felt, microsoft has finally rewarded its customer base for their loyalty.
They’ll be able to pick each other out in a crowd and nod to one another in a warm gesture of assurance that they finally belong to a club of their own. It’s a feel good moment for them and we can all share in their joy.
Imagine, microsoft has had years to study the trends of music players, past and present, and could have spent millions developing something totally new and compelling but at the end of the day all the faithful are getting is a mediocre re-branded player.
What will follow in the days following zune’s release, is the marketing equivalent of polishing a turd and the only saving grace that could possibly keep this turd afloat is zune marketplace, which I suspect will become a blackhole for choice, ease-of-use, and money.
Somehow, I can’t see a couple of guys exchanging music wirelessly in the hallways at school, not the guys I know anyway. Definitely NOT COOL.
These will be the top five video jokes of the week on Apple campus.
It is shameful to actually say that, because of the sheep, these ads
will probably later be rated as succesful.
The only good thing about these ads is that it will get more people on the digital music bandwagon.
If I have the video iPod up my sleeve, I would release it the same time as the Zune with more award winning iPod ads just in time for Christmas.
So, you squirt a song to your girlfriend. She listens to her Zune, you listen to yours… is the song in sync? Don’t think so.
Zune® – Makes no sense.
RE: https://www.zune-arts.net/
Wow. Some of this stuff is kinda cool.
But it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with this little player they’re trying to sell me.
And all the videos seem to end just when they get going, like I’m about to be presented with a screen that pleads excitedly “subscribe to see how it all ends!!”
You know, this whole “we are the world” social network crap… well it all sounds a bit familiar to this old-school Mac chick. Reminds me of… Macworld 1995… Boston… I remember they had all these little kiosks with a great new network that was going to bring us all together to sing camp songs and make fimo…
It was called… Let me see if I can remember…
‘e•World’
‘member that?
=)
Ah… those were the days.
MW: ‘world’ (Wide Won’t)
bob -“Those commercials are incredibly boring … and what’s with the dogs …”
well bob, it’s common sense, you need DOGS to have DOG TURD
. . . i mean brown zunes
HAHAHA! I just watched the first one! The Zunes are shown from too far away to distinguish them from iPods! Most people are going to think, “Wow, look at all the hip kids dancing around listening to their iPods!” Yes, they show the product and logo at the end, but any marketer worth his salt will tell you that doesn’t matter. (True fact: When Energizer introduced the “Energizer Bunny”, studies found that most viewers remembered it as an ad for Duracell!)
How is it more social to have two people listening to the same song on different players rather than on one player through a set of portable speakers (LOTS of them available for the iPod – I believe NONE available for the Zune) or by each listening to an ear bud, or as my wife and I do from time to time, with a splitter and two sets of earphones.
If your each on your own player there’s no way your going to be dancing together as you won’t ever be at the same place in the song or on the same beat…
Stupid –
It’s like Zen wrapped in Karma dipped in chocolate.
It’s like Gigabeat wrapped in Failure dipped in shit.
One other quick comment: Vague commercials that don’t clearly illustrate the product are useful only when the product is completely new. That’s why the silhouette iPod ads worked so well. The idea of a pocket-sized device which held thousands of songs was completely new, so the ads didn’t have to be specific — they just needed to stoke curiosity.
But today everyone knows what an MP3 player is, and most have a favorable opinion of the iPod. A vague commercial isn’t going to sell the Zune. Consumers will want to know why they should buy a Zune instead of an iPod (and the illustrations of Wi-Fi in the ads are too quick and unclear to count).
I’ve seen better videos done in a high school AV lab… with stop motion. Why would these adds influence ppl to buy a Zune???
That was a waste of 5 minutes of my life!
Hi I’m a MAC, Hi I’m a PC ….
I think your seeing a rejected add pitch to Apple.
They are are actually TOUTING the spinning dial “connecting” icon as the raison d’être of the entire “connection” experience!
That’s gall.
IT’S A WAIT CURSOR. Wait symbols mean your technology isn’t INSTANT.
Leave it to Microsoft not to understand that, and leave it to the Microsoft fans to not understand it either.
I’m especially proud that the iPod doesn’t have a logo, it IS it’s own logo.
Zune is so generic as to be invisible. It needs a nazi/satanic eye-catching logo or else no one will notice it.
Okay, so these commercials *do* look a little like a hairy guy in a sundress. ;P
-c
MW: ‘freedom’ (ya gotta give-a whatcha taaaaaaake)
LordRobin:
” (True fact: When Energizer introduced the “Energizer Bunny”, studies found that most viewers remembered it as an ad for Duracell!)”
YOU MEAN IT’S NOT?!
OOPS. ::blush::
Guilty as charged. And it’s 2006? 😀
I just realized what I dislike about these ads.
They look like a pervert is filming these people from the bushes.
Lots of uncomfortable closeups of couples, telephoto shots of kids…animals sniffing privates…just…creepy.
It’s as if Steve Ballmer is in the bushes with a camcorder, coming and coming and coming and coming and squirting, touching himself in multiple places.
Maybe Zunes can be used as sex offender tracking systems. “Look! Here comes one of those perverts! See his Zune? Get the kids into the car, honey!”
Now we know exactly what type of videos PC has been trying to make… Should have used iMovie…
These are…a work in progress…
Hmmm, Actually, I thought the commercials were OK. Just OK. Nothing exciting. But OK.
As far as the music bands, could they be the implied music that the people are hearing. IE its like being at a concert when you share with your friends???
OK, not a problem there, its pretty subtle but with a little tweak, it could be better.
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I would expect Microsoft to actually do better than everyone is saying. Just because they are Microsoft. But I still feel they will crash and burn. JMHO.
N.
They are really, really pushing the social, but in the Picnic ad, when the girl shares her music with her dog, she gives him (her?) one of her earbuds – just like you see people doing on the street with iPods and other MP3 players that have actually shipped. Otherwise all the sharing consists of people standing so close their Zunes are touching (sounds kinda dirty, doesn’t it) but completely isolated from each other with plugs in both ears and fixated on the screens of their little magic boxes. Talk to the pretty lady, darnnit.
The Zune logo at the end. Only the Zune logo at the end. Not a sniff of MicroSoft. Interesting. The iPod logo is the Apple logo. They don’t think the MicroSoft brand will help the Zune? They think the Zune will hurt the MicroSoft brand? They (most likely) just forgot?
Brown squirts…youth rallies…swastika-like logos…SOCIALISM….
…if this Social Movement goes National, I’m outta here!
Everybody bring your Zune players, some Mortar, and comeover to my place and help my resurface the front of my house. Those Zune players are thick enough and are the Perfect color. This may be the start of a new trend.
The only Idea iLike about the Zune is the WiFi sharing deal. No more sharing headsets wuith other. I sure hope apple comes up with something better soon.
In addition, these commercials Suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
mmm… I don’t like the commercials but I’m not sure.
I think they’re crafted like this with a purpose… namely to stand apart from the slick iPod phenomenon and to appeal to the alternative crowd.
Once a some kind of userbase has been established they might try to hype the Zune to the big crowd. If it works is another thing…
When I first got my iPod, a 1st Gen 5GB, people would come up to me and tell me that they read how crappy they were and how they would never take off. I had someone even tell me that despite the quoted 20 minutes or so of anti-skip protection thanks to built in memory, they actually had no skip protection at all and that simply moving it would make it skip, possibly to another song. Complete nonsense, obviously, but the kind of thing that spread quickly when people realized how great iPods were and then that they couldn’t own one.
I’m thinking now of getting a Zune, just to relive those days of being ridiculed for owning something widely seen as generally sucky. But this time there are commercials to prove them right.
This is what happens when you try to do an “artsy-video” on a Windows computer…
Big brown dog turds…
“Hi! I’m a PC, take a look at my home movie…”
It’s a work in progress…
Also, Zune, to share a song with your friend you need to buy TWO ZUNES & sync…
iPod, just buy TWO HEADPHONES & a “splitter” & you can share music with your friend with ONE iPOD, plus hear the same song at the same time in sync with each other… THAT’S BEING SOCIAL.
The ‘alternative crowd’ doesn’t like Microsoft. And a lot of them are Mac users.
And real, honest to goodness hipsters, the ones that want to be different… yeah, they get their kit from someone obscure that you haven’t heard of.
*THAT’S WHAT MAKES THEM HIP*
They don’t go to Wal•Mart to be sold individuality.
They don’t even go to Hot Topic.
Microsoft has precisely zero concept of this.
That is because Microsoft is run by people that you would never hang out with socially if you were at all hip.
They wouldn’t even be allowed in line.
Bill Gates knows what I want?
Ballmer?
You know, a couple of years ago, at a trade show, they actually tried to push Net Connected Fridge Magnets.
*FRIDGE*F*CKIN*MAGNETS*
I know there must be video of it somewhere, I wish someone could find it.
Anyway. If you’re hoping a big crowd of kids are going to beat a path to Zune to be part of this lovely fantasy land you’ve shown them, you are gonna get pwnd hXc.
-c
MW: ‘they’ (don’t make ’em like they used to)
You’ve got to be kidding me…
I thought M$ actually had money to pay for slickness and not farm out it’s marketing to a Communication Arts 201 class project.
Yikes!
I like how the final video has a close up of the guys phone, instead of a Zune in his hand.
try directing the action in the vid.
These look like out-takes from you tube home videos.
Oh THAT’s the affect they’re after, oohhhhhhh!
I still don’t get it.
Let’s go to a concert and listen to our MP3 players….???
RE: Bizzaro Ballmer
Yeah, I think you’re right. But the difference is simple: No one that watches any of those commercials are going to say “Hey, this is a great video, I’m going to send it to all my friends and put it on my MySpace.
I mean, they do it for skateboarding dogs! ^_^
The commercial-conveying-the-product was not the point.
These were supposed to by a little viral, I think.
And they aren’t. At *ALL*.
The only people who post them will do so as we have don here, to make fun of them.
Yes, not all publicity is *good* publicity.
-c
MW: ‘got’ (clue?)
these are terrible. non of these social events even look like ones i would want to attend. and how good is that rap concert if people are listening to their zune’s? totally lame F- for microsuck.
“Nobody cares what drugs you’re on.”
I get it, according to the singer you have to be inebriated to get a Zune. I can imagine someone waking up after a night of tokin’ and snortin’, glancing over, and thinking. “Oh, crap, I bought a Zune. What the hell was I smokin’?” A few more tragedies like this and rehab clinics will be packed with regretful Zune owners.
After being a designer and an art director of 35+ years, I can categorically confirm that these ads are absolute shit.
Horrible.
People won’t even understand that the music files are being shared.
Picture #1: An iPod with caption, “This is your brain.”
Picture #2: A Zune with caption, “This is your brain on drugs.”
YOU’RE FIRED!!!
iPod introduction in 2001:
Remember the “original” Zune ad?
http://www.zuneviews.com/archive/2006/07/22/The-Zune-Commercial.aspx
I always thought the actors had expressions of bemusement, bewilderment, perplexity, or bored curiosity rather than overt excitement, that is, except for the grade school kid at the end. Still the ad had some nifty visual presentations. What the hell happened between then and now? Looks like someone took a dump on the table and called it delicious.
People standing around in a close circle like that passing stuff around looks a lot like a drug deal is going down
lol
mdn word: Took
well… nearly >> toke
Hey, no bigotted comments… Towertone must be napping…
When I think of things that are brown and squirt, pleasant user experiences are not associated with them. E. coli and explosive diarrhea anyone?
The girl that cuts my hair was there for the filming of the “Concert” commercial (but I didn’t see her in the 30 second spot). She said that the reaction to the Zune by everyone was pretty laughable. Oh, and they had to be told repeatedly not to “spin” the buttons like an iPod.
“Makes the iPod Ads look cold and antiseptic!”
Oh yeah..iPod commercials showing people dancing.. so uptight
Sadly, I think these commercials will be somewhat popular this holiday season. I noticed, however, that the Zune is not as prominently featured in their ads as the iPod is in Apple’s.
The proof will be in the puddin’ – what will people think when they actually use a Zune?
Road Warrior — Brilliant and funny — your ‘countryman’ is the idiot.
Uhm, I loathe anything MS but I honestly think 4 of the 5 ads could be very effective. (The dog scratching one is just embarassingly purile and pointless).
Others have said it too — the issue is not that “you have to understand connectivity to ‘get’ it”. IT”S AN AD! It is supposed to elicit an emotion that causes you to take an action. Period. They are saying that the cool people who hang out together and have friends, <u>have Zunes</u>. So the ‘logic’ follows that if you buy a Zune, you will have friends and get to hang around with cool people.
People keep complaining that the Zune isn’t featured prominently… NO KIDDING! It’s an AD! That they are secondary to the peoples’ lives is a BIG part of the message — if you are cool, you have one of these Zune thingies — no big deal about it — you just do, because you’re cool.
Any of you ‘ad experts’ ever seen a friggin’ beer commercial? Does Sam Adams have 100% of the market ’cause they talk about the product? Do the beer companies who only show hot chicks in bathing suits manage to do okay too? — well, it’s the same thing — buy our beer and you will be associated with cool people and hot chicks. Buy a Zune and you will be associated with cool people who are social, rather than what you really are which is a lifeless slug sitting around in your parents’ basement watching porn.
Sorry, fellow Mac o’ philes. MS makes <u>garbage</u> and the Zune <u>sucks</u>, both technically and practically. That doesn’t mean that the advertising is inherently ‘bad’ too. And of how much the Zune sucks will have very little effect on whether people will buy the crap or not. The point of advertising is to make you want something for EMOTIONAL reasons, not practical ones. (Feel free to research that on the Web sometime).
Is Microsoft gonna make a habit of coming to the party 5 years late, and then realizing they forgot their shirt, and their pants, and probably the underwear too? I mean Vista’s the same shit as the Zune in that respect.
Hey, no intelligent comments from Frank…he must be awake.
“We asked our own SteveJack (16-year TV vet)”
You missed a word, Jack from his writing seems to be a 16 year OLD TV vet.
First things first: As commercials I think they suck. Unfortunately, as a marketing campaign, they’re effective: first, because they suck, they will manage to stick in peoples brains. Second, they get their message across,Except the 15-second scratch-the-dog thingie. (WTH was that?) Third, they’re consistent – the message they spread across each commercial, except for the one i just complained about, is similar.
The bigger question to ask is two-fold: how long and how often will we see it once it comes out?Will it be like fast food, where every other ad is a Zune ad, or will we be lucky to see it twice a night like the Apple ads? Furthermore, how long will we see these ads following the initial couple of weeks, when demand (if any) dies down?
For the majority of us who read the blogs, the info news and all the BS on the internet about this stuff, we already have a pretty solid opinion in one way or the other, and when it shows up it will more than likely solidify our opinions of it. The majority of the world, however, probably doesn’t read this stuff, see the blogs and facts and opinions, so these ads will be their introduction to it. So while we will still feel that these ads are what they are, the effectiveness won’t be demonstrated until they start airing and people actually see the thing working. That’s when we’ll know how much of an iPod killer this thing really is.
(You can probably guess what your jobs are… Don’t you just love being a geek right about now?)
The commercials make the people and the situations look sleazy, and it is hard to tell what they are trying to sell. These are “atmosphere” commercials.
The sharing feature is really a way of making users into salesmen. You share a song with someone, they like it, it evaporates after three plays, so you have to go buy it.
Microsoft is trying to look hip, but it reminds me of the woman on Jerry Springer who tried to relate to her daughter by dressing like a teenager. Ick!
Wow, some response. Well I have been writting a while here, but to clarify, I am not a citizen from the Axis of AENUS (Australia, England n United States), nor am I from the Axis of Evil.
I am glad that the Americans are not offended. You people mind telling me which continent you are from, is that like North America or South America?
To those that appreciated the humor. Well done. I mean I knew the scatological ones would be flowing so much like diarrhea that Bill Gates would probably have to donate money to a research foundation.
So…. we were watching the ads in the marketing dept at my job. Everyone seemed to like the natural energy about them.
Very different than the iPod commercials, but still pretty good. I found more on http://www.zune.net
It seems they are going for a slightly alternative market than the iPod right out of the gate. They released the product to mp3 blogs first; put indie bands – instead of Bono – on the device; and have grungy punk rock and underground hip hop on the website.
I kinda dig it.
Looks like MS has found their target market – trailer trash punks.
A pedophile is 17% more likely to be a Republican than a Democrat. That is why this country is in bad shape. With so many Republicans in power, there is a greater likelihood that we have more pedophiles in our House and Senate. Do the right thing for our kids, and vote Democrat!
I’m with Buster 4 out of 5 stink. I actually liked the dog one…I thought it was funny…or perhaps agree with Buster that it was because you don’t see a Zune in it. Either way, it’s the best out of all of them.
So Wal-Mart is quick to stand behind Zune. Great, mullets sharing Motley Crue mp3s wireless.
FYI: Your grandmother can find them near the wall-mounted talking BASS fish in the “Nascar in a 8 foot Snow Globe” department.
Some free advice… ship Zune pre-programmed with the new Garth Brooks record, and sell it to the mouth-breathers.
ewww! Mullets squirting Motley Crue songs! I just threw up in my mouth.
got it!!!
The Zune II will allow you to TASER your mp3 to any Nano or iPod user.
The great thing about the iPod is that it appeals to everyone, from a 10-year old kid with her little shuffle, to an 84-year old grandma who received an iPod for christmas and listens to it all the time.
I don’t see the Zune being able to capitalize on this broad of an age range…they’ll get some teens, and some 20-somethings, but that’s about it.
It’s the whole “People over 30 understand” sort of thing…
Oh yeah, and these commercials just aren’t appealing. They don’t make me remember the product, of course I barely know what the product is, and unless I really like dogs, I’ll have completely forgotten the spot by the time my show comes back on.
Hey FOILCHEWER (great name), are you available for comedy writing? We’re crying here!
If the concept is strong and the advertising is well planned, we can sell anything. Unfortunately, the spots reak of “corporate cool” and fail miserably. However, we do like the dog scratching spot but could do without the “my cool dad” in his condo living room doing the VO scratching. What I mean by “corporate cool” is that there’s usually a group 50somethings who believe they’re plugged into what’s currently trendy and cool. Therefore, they’ll rush to approval without the benefit of target focus groups or by filtering the creative.
Zune will find it’s place somewhere. We’re convinced that Apple spends big $ to ensure successful advertising and marketing. But one thing Apple has above all is solid products. FOILCHEWER is right again when he/she spoke of capitalizing on the grandmother and Wal-Mart bumpkin demographic. They’re the ones who will buy blind. Trey, you also hit it when speaking of the mass appeal of Apple and retaining the product from the spots.
Hey Zune, the KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, and we’re smarter than you think.
Hey FOILCHEWER (great name), are you available for comedy writing? We’re crying here!
If the concept is strong and the advertising is well planned, we can sell anything. Unfortunately, the spots reak of “corporate cool” and fail miserably. However, we do like the dog scratching spot but could do without the “my cool dad” in his condo living room doing the VO scratching. What I mean by “corporate cool” is that there’s usually a group 50somethings who believe they’re plugged into what’s currently trendy and cool. Therefore, they’ll rush to approval without the benefit of target focus groups or by filtering the creative.
Zune will find it’s place somewhere. We’re convinced that Apple spends big $ to ensure successful advertising and marketing. But one thing Apple has above all is solid products. FOILCHEWER is right again when he/she spoke of capitalizing on the grandmother and Wal-Mart bumpkin demographic. They’re the ones who will buy blind. Trey, you also hit it when speaking of the mass appeal of Apple and retaining the product from the spots.
Hey Zune, the KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, and we’re smarter than you think.
Hey FOILCHEWER (great name), are you available for comedy writing? We’re crying here!
If the concept is strong and the advertising is well planned, we can sell anything. Unfortunately, the spots reak of “corporate cool” and fail miserably. However, we do like the dog scratching spot but could do without the “my cool dad” in his condo living room doing the VO scratching. What I mean by “corporate cool” is that there’s usually a group 50somethings who believe they’re plugged into what’s currently trendy and cool. Therefore, they’ll rush to approval without the benefit of target focus groups or by filtering the creative.
Zune will find it’s place somewhere. We’re convinced that Apple spends big $ to ensure successful advertising and marketing. But one thing Apple has above all is solid products. FOILCHEWER is right again when he/she spoke of capitalizing on the grandmother and Wal-Mart bumpkin demographic. They’re the ones who will buy blind. Trey, you also hit it when speaking of the mass appeal of Apple and retaining the product from the spots.
Hey Zune, the KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, and we’re smarter than you think.
I hope the Zune fails. I love all things Apple. These commercials are really really good.
wow….they have no point to them AT ALL!!! how do the commercials advertise the product? throughout the whole thing one has no idea what they are advertising!!! what? are they selling puppies?! “…the social” ? what is that like their catch phrase? it does not go with the product and does not make sense which is the bottom line. i dont see how they are going to compete with Apple’s iPod.
Does anyone think all the dogs in the commercials may have some kind of symbolic connection to the brown Zune?
Picnic: What is this about? Where is it going? The black/brown earthtone theme of Zune marketing is everywhere. Even the green grass is muted and drab. The songs tells me “Nobody cares about you, nobody cares what kind of drugs you’re on.” Er… yeah, I love you, too. Oh yeah, everyone loves dogs.
Battle: Better than Picnic, shows product more. Still drab, 1970’s look. Zune is for All in the Family?
Concert: I guess the “old footage” look that persists here is to invoke a Do It Yourself, homegrown feeling, in reaction to perceptions that iPod is too slick and for prettyboys. Feel the irony of Microsoft going all anti-corporate on us.
Dog Scratch: Ok, we love dogs, we get it. Now what’s your point? Your audience is dorks singing to ball-licking dogs?
Couple: I’ve had it with the 1970’s footage, Electric Company here I come. This one sells us on the file sharing Zune feature with two people close enough to follow Steve Job’s advice to just share earbuds. These two are obviously sharing a lot, might as well add ear wax.
PS: Compared to iPod TV spots, the Zune music selections are incredibly insipid.