“Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ advertising campaign was created on a Mac and the celebrity spruikers brought in by the software giant are all professed Apple fans, it has been revealed,” Asher Moses reports for The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Hidden information contained in images from the ads published on Microsoft’s website show they were created on Macs, a Flickr user revealed in a published screen shot,” Moses reports. “Microsoft responded by quickly scrubbing the hidden ‘metadata’ information from the images.”
“The revelation is ironic because the ads are part of a broader $300 million campaign designed to spruce up Windows Vista’s image and tout the PC’s advantages over the Mac,” Moses reports.
Microsoft has already run two ad spots featuring Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld awkwardly meeting in a discount shoe shop and attempting to reconnect with real people by moving in with a normal family,” Moses reports. “But even though a third ad featuring Seinfeld was filmed, Microsoft dumped the comic last week in favour of new ads featuring more current celebrities such as actress Eva Longoria, singer Pharrell Williams and even author Deepak Chopra declaring ‘I’m a PC.'”
“But all three are Mac fans, Silicon Valley gossip blog Valleywag revealed,” Moses reports.
Microsoft’s ads “seek to counter Apple’s elitist Mac user vibe by including a slew of everyday PC users, such as scientists and teachers, espousing the virtues of their platform of choice. In one spot a diver appears in a cage surrounded by sharks holding up a sign saying ‘I’m a PC.'”
Full article here.
Well, the ads had to actually get finished in order to air, right? So, obviously they were made on Macs. The ad agency’s only Windows PCs are down in accounting, they’ve all had terrible Winrot, and are in the process of being wiped and restored for the umpteenth time.
And, oh by the way, Macs can slum it by running Windows and Windows apps natively or via fast virtualization which just so happens to totally negate Microsoft’s entire ill-conceived $300 million campaign anyway.
Maybe the dopey celebs featured in Microsoft’s mess thought “PC” stood for “Politically Correct” or something?
Microsoft is a joke. Their OS is a joke. And most of the world made a big, productivity-killing mistake.
But, hey, mistakes happen sometimes; even big, worldwide, over a decade-long mistakes. Don’t fret, it’s currently in the process of being remedied.
why is it a big deal they are using macs? their commercials aren’t selling dells or HP’s , just windows, which we all know is an option to use on a mac.
unless i’m wrong, none of the people in commercials are shown next to their computer of choice. So for all you know they use a mac. Apple should jump on that and show users using windows on their mac only to be blown away by OSX when they switch to it
I never understood the whole ‘elitist’ tag Mac users have gotten. Sure, there are some overly enthusiastic fans, but those exist for Windows folks as well. To me, using OS X is just so much better than any version of Windows I have used that I feel an obligation to convince my friends to at least try it.
If its true that the three or four of the biggest stars on the commercial are Mac users, and they took the money cause, well,,,, a Mac is a Personal computer (PC) afterall, and runs windows if you are that crass, then did the ad agency just blow it ???????
Remember the Microsoft ad about the lady who switched from Mac to PC,,,,,,,, and how it was all a fake,,,,,,,,,.
Just a thought.
en
Gossip and comments made on comments, but this still brings joy to my elitist heart. Things are starting to look a bit bad for Ol’ Chairthrow. A bit bad indeed.
It is immoral to espouse something publicly that one does not use or believe in. Lies for money. Sell your soul and make a fool of yourself in front of millions.
“I’m a greedy unethical idiot willing to expose my lousy lack of character in front of everybody.”
— new accurate ad
FWIW: the Mac is a PC, It just isn’t limited to being a “Windows PC”, which is the implication behind the term “PC” these days when close to 90% of all PCs run that OS.
Heh … love that “close to 90%” thing. How long ago was it “close to 95%” instead? It seems such a small thing, yet it is a great change on the Mac side and worrisome on the Windows side.
Now: a question for MDN. Are you factually reporting that the agency is having problems with their Windows systems, that ALL of them are being cleared of Winrot more or less regularly? Or is that just a jibe based on your opinion that “Windows $UX”? You state it as if reporting a fact while my experience would suggest that a company with its accounting department disabled would quickly collapse.
“It is immoral to espouse something publicly that one does not use or believe in. Lies for money. Sell your soul and make a fool of yourself in front of millions”
don’t all the celebs say their names?
….at least Deepak Chopra was honest. his name *means* “I’m a greedy unethical idiot willing to expose my lousy lack of character in front of everybody.”
What a bunch of whores.
Every day this MS ad campaign looks more like a huge backfire.
One ad of three is cancelled after the poor reception of the first two.
The replacement commercials were created with Macs.
The celebrities in the new commercial are Mac users.
Can it get any worse?
Strike Three, Microsoft. Yerrrrrrrrr OUT!
“I never understood the whole ‘elitist’ tag Mac users have gotten. Sure, there are some overly enthusiastic fans, but those exist for Windows folks as well. To me, using OS X is just so much better than any version of Windows I have used that I feel an obligation to convince my friends to at least try it.”
elitist: a person who believes that they belong to an elite
elite: a group of people considered to be the best in a particular society or category
if OS X is so much better than windows, then its users, knowing that, are better informed than windows users. thus, in a sense, elite.
despite the anti-intellectual bent that America has been on for about 100 years now, being intelligent, right, and well informed is a goal to strive for, not a label to run from.
embrace the word. it isn’t bad. stupid ill informed cave men who are proud of their ignorance may say it like an insult, but who listens to the right wing anyway?
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Using that nutter Deepak Chopra to advertise anything is the height of stupidity. Anyone who claims, as he does, that Yogic flying is possible, that “Mundane as it sounds, flying is simply a habit”, and that “by consciously using our awareness, we can influence the way we age biologically. . . . You can tell your body not to age” is not aware of the world he’s in. He’s made millions of dollars (with some hints of tax fraud/evasion along the way) promoting Ayurvedic mumbo-jumbo, denies, evolution occurs (even though he is a medical doctor and son of a cardiologist) and this is who MS gets to promotes their vision of PC? That figures.
I I were heading up this campaign the FIRST thing I would make sure is that there’s wasn’t any damning metadata in the images. I’m truly concerned and embarrassed for Microsoft now.
Any truth that Crispin Porter + Bogusky execs have been seen in Cupertino?
The ONLY explanation is that they are acting as double agents for Mac. Clever guy that Mac…
Hah! That was funny, Cubert.
Well, Deepak Chopra is a fraud anyway. So what’s new? He takes money from people by scamming them telling all sorts of lies. S.O.P. for Two pack DeChopra.
Crisp n Bogus is the right agency for Macro$#!+
Good work, keep it up!
Shen
There is a difference between thinking you are smarter than everyone,
and everyone thinking you are smart.
Well if Mafia$oft wanted elitist and smug they sure got it with Deepak Chopra. What an arrogant, self-centered, shyster of an @$$ that guy is.
He just proves that a sucker is born every day.
Shen,
“don’t all the celebs say their names?”
No. I don’t think any of them do. They all just say, “I’m a PC and….. (insert inane drivel here).
@Radius said
——
I never understood the whole ‘elitist’ tag Mac users have gotten. Sure, there are some overly enthusiastic fans, but those exist for Windows folks as well. To me, using OS X is just so much better than any version of Windows I have used that I feel an obligation to convince my friends to at least try it.
——
This is a great point that is rarely conveyed. I’m not feeling elitist, I’m feeling sympathy for my friends when I see them struggling with all of the crap associated with Windows. If I care about them I can’t help but attempt to help them find their way to an Apple store.
Why get all worked up over an ad campaign that is designed to keep the Windows fanatics on board.
The likes of Ballmer, Gates, Thurrott and Enderlie were not going to switch anyway.
I think Microsoft’s ad agency has seriously underestimated the size of the problem they are facing here. The Mac ads have been focusing on the merits of the platform. Simply trying to claim that people using PCs are “cool” is not enough–and certainly they can’t afford to embrace the “Macs-PCs co-existence” world as that is the very thing they are trying to move people away from (and back to Vista). So using Macs to create the ads, and using avowed Mac users in them, is seriously hurting their credibility. Neither Mac nor PC customers are stupid–they see right through this.
The ads themselves–even the Seinfeld ones–I think are good ads in and of themselves had the Apple Mac/PC ads not existed. But they do, and this campaign, if the intended goal is to counter Apple’s very strong position, is bombing badly. Crispen and partners need to sweep this under the rug and go back to the drawing board–quickly.
They should keep on with these moronic ads — “I’m a PC and I have a beard; glasses; ring; 2 rings, etc — but none of us have a brain or any morals!”
I want everybody to be elite.