“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. $300 million more flushed down the toilet.
Vista-erasing/XP-loading HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony et al. can’t be happy that Microsoft is stupidly going this route and helping to expose their PCs as OS-limited to the world.
Only Apple’s OS-unlimited Macs can run it all.
Anyone exiting an Apple Store has every right to go into that booth and explain why they’re a “PC,” too. Just say something like:
• I’m a PC, too because Microsoft locked somebody in somewhere with something along the line and now I am forced to pollute my pristine Mac with Windows in order to access some random program that my long-retired boss had some geek write in 1996 that my company sees no reason to ever update; or
• Because I want to play a game that some shortsighted developer decided to make Windows-only (even though Mac users have more disposable income and are proven to actually pay for more software).
Those are the only two reasons, besides plain ignorance, why people ever boot Windows.
You know those Apple logo stickers they put in every box? You know what to do.
Shameless coffee mug plug: In a world without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows? (Get one today – it’s an especially great gift for IT guys!)
Apple should set up a big tv next to the Microcrap booth outside their stores that play that video that is in this article over and over and over (loop it) that would fix that problem.
Good. Competition is good for the consumer.
@Hyper Hippie
That slogan would make a perfect t-shirt design.
Some one needs to run with that idea !!!!!!!!!
@ Hyper Hippie
Wish I’d said this.
“Life Without Walls” slogan after the Windows flag logo is bizarre. If you don’t have walls, why do you need Windows?
Someone needs to make that a t shirt design and run with it !!!!!!!
So isn’t that pathetic? What a twisted way to acknoledge that you miss the point? M$ is really getting down the pit and might sooner than ever touch the ground of their own actual customers scorn!
“Only Apple’s OS-unlimited Macs can run it all.”
Why choose a hardware limited OS?
the phrase ‘IM A PC’ contains the word ‘MAC’? How funny is that? We should go around crossing out the other letters.
I think Microsoft’s booth campaign is a spot on marketing message to describe their value added. (Think about it!)
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The golden rule of business is never talk about #2 when you are #1. When you are the under dog however, the gloves are off. Remind me again what the market share numbers are???
If I was in charge of Apple Retail I’d be going to my Property Owner/Management and getting the Eye sours removed from in front of the store or I’d make it clear that future business with that Property owner/management company is likely to be in jeopardy.
If this is real, it’s the mark of a company that is just out of ideas, therefore grasping at straws…
If Crispin Porter & Bogusky is a Mac house, then each of their staff, particularly the one working on the MS accout, should have the integrity to stand right in front of their portaloo and state their position. Either they are a Mac or prostituting themselves off as a PC!
Apple should put posters outside their stores, facing these kiosks, advertising the fact that Macs can run Mac OS X and Windows, and nothing else can.
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@Why
“Why choose a hardware limited OS?”
Gee, that’s right! Why choose the superior OS running on the better hardware, when one could choose to run the crappy OS on the OS-limited hardware!
@Why – The good news is, you can double the number of people who think you’re clever, by talking to yourself in a mirror.
Next thing, I suppose, is the image of a blind man soliciting donations with a sign around his neck saying, “PC Deprivation.”
Could also be Depravation, couldn’t it?
Microsoft must be using the same people directing the McCain campaign.
Get a black marker and erase the “P”. Problem solved.
Man, I can’t stand Chopra.
I knew he was a sellout, but… man, this is sooo low.
It’s amazing — for all its prosperity and power, most of Microsoft’s marketing efforts are pervaded by this incredible underlying sense of insecurity. Instead of promoting its products on their own (dubious) merits, the current “I’m a PC” campaign is merely a knee-jerk response to Apple’s own ad campaign (and a mediocre one at that).
Case-in-point — Microsoft’s “Where do you want to go today” magazine layouts that ran a few years go — which featured people in various photographed settings, dreaming or imagining themselves in a more ambitious future job, with the job itself cleverly hand-drawn over the photograph, was a creative campaign. Not that it would make me buy anything from MS, but at least it was original and creative…
If I were the manager of the Apple Store, I’d be thrilled that Microsoft has shot itself in the foot right outside my store!
Notice the contrast between frumpy, cluttered, closed-in Microsoft and cool, clean, spacious Apple. Microsoft’s cluttered posters reek of the 19th century. The recording booth implies that you’d only speak your preference for PCs in secret, but the openness of the Apple Store conveys the message that Macs are so cool you want everyone to see.
I’d set the Macs near the store front playing the I’m A PC Too ad on a loop.
Microsoft has granted Apple peer status! They acknowledge, finally, that Apple is not a boutique manufacturer of niche products, but a true competitor. And it has proved once again that Apple outclasses it.
Four words: flash mob apple stickers
i’m an anus, and i dilate every time i see steve balmer!
Next thing, I suppose, is the image of a blind man soliciting donations with a sign around his neck saying…
…”Glossy screens did this to me.”
I say just simply ignore the MS folks and their Windows loos.
Sweet revenge would be the Apple Stores pulling great traffic all day, with people paying ZERO attention to the MS shacks.
When the MS folks get desperate/insecure and start trying to pull in people, respond “MS? Why? I’m here for Apple.”.
Anyway it’s very fitting to hawk MS products via shithouse.
Wonder if they’ll have any Zunes floating in the bowl.