After a long dry spell, Microsoft has quite randomly debuted a new “I’m a PC” ad. It’s at least as stupid as it’s predecessors:
MacDailyNews Take: Let’s just try to forget about the ridiculous concept of turning someone’s house into a fsckified PC store without her knowledge and move on some other issues contained within this mess.
“So there is no tower anymore?” Yes, love, since June 5, 1977, with the release of the Apple II. Or, in case you missed that one, since January 24, 1984, with the release of something called “Macintosh.” Or, in case you missed even that, since August 15, 1998, with the release of the iMac.
With these ads, Microsoft seems intent on reinforcing the fact that those who waste their money on Windows PCs are vapid, pissy, ill-informed twits with hideous haircuts destined for severe cases of gorilla arm. That’s some selling point.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related articles:
New Microsoft ad ‘Giampaolo’ targets sticker-priced-obsessed PC buyers (with video) – April 4, 2009
Slate: Microsoft tries to peddle Windows as ‘The Poor Man’s Mac’ – April 02, 2009
Microsoft’s anti-Apple ad ‘Lauren’ reeks of fear, nastiness – April 02, 2009
Congrats, Lauren! You’re a ‘PC’ and now you own a $699 Piece o’ Crap – March 29, 2009
FOXNews discusses Microsoft’s ad for cheap, under-powered, ill-equipped PC laptops – March 27, 2009
New Microsoft ad targets inexperienced, sticker-priced-obsessed PC buyers (with video) – March 26, 2009
Microsoft’s Mojave for real: Windows 7 unmasked; it’s just Vista underneath – November 11, 2008
Oh-so-rebellious Microsoft parks ‘I’m a PC’ port-a-potty, er, recording booth outside Apple Stores – October 31, 2008
Microsoft to spend record amounts to market Vista service pack, er, ‘Windows 7’ – October 28, 2008
Microsoft’s $300m ad campaign doomed? ‘I’m a PC, too’ says Apple’s OS-unlimited Mac (with video) – September 23, 2008
Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ ads created on Apple Macs – September 20, 2008
Microsoft airs its ‘I’m a PC’ ads (with video) – September 19, 2008
Microsoft admeisters Crispin Porter+Bogusky love their Apple Macs (UPDATE: Apple pulls profile) – September 18, 2008
Ad exec: Casting Microsoft as Apple’s ‘victim’ doesn’t work – September 18, 2008
Microsoft cans Seinfeld; to attempt to rehab Vista with ‘I’m a PC’ Hodgman lookalike – September 18, 2008
Ah, yes. The attempt by Microsoft to remain relevant compared with Mac. 🙂
When you really look at how they advertise. I think their real competition is the Android market.
Pathetic Add!
Two words in your sentence, and you still manage to spell one wrong.
To label it Boring and mundane would be a compliment.
Form Wikipedia on “Gorilla Arm”:
“Vertical touchscreens still dominate in applications such as ATMs and data kiosks in which the usage is too brief to be an ergonomic problem”.
I think that is why they use vertical touchscreens as in that HP: It is because “the usage is too brief to be an ergonomic problem”.
Shit happens, sometimes®
Oh, and also:
Stupid is as stupid does®
Waaaaa??? They wrecked her house and put a bunch of garbage inside. Why is she at all happy? Actually, watching it again, I’m not so sure she is!
Embarassing.
What do the rumored Apple-killer “Microsoft retail stores and the iPad-killer “Courier tablet” have in common?
Vaporware! You better believe it. ™ =;~B
Microsoft shouting it out from the rooftops:
YES, I’M A PC & I’M A TWAT!!!!
Touch screen and no tower….What will they think of next?
In England isn’t it? Bit unusual. Still crap and patronising though.
Yes it is.
We have simpletons over here too.
Wow! This is even stupider than the one they paid Jerry Seinfeld millions of dollars for.
NOTHING can match those Seinfeld/Gates ads. Truly cringe-worthy. This was just dumb.
Julie likes “touch”? Apparently, MS wants to emphasize that you can have that only with Windows, there simply are no other touch devices…
Julie, iPads actually do work without a tower.
Julie likes touch… lol! Not going there.
I wish I could have been there in the creative meeting for this one..
“Lets get someone from England…and we’ll lure her out of her house, then break in and do a “Trading Spaces” makeover of her living room only it will be a miniature ‘PC store’!!! and she can come home and then immediately go shopping in her HOUSE for PC’s because people LOVE showrooms AND makeovers! Talk about demonstrating VALUE and the fact that we GET IT… ”
This ad agency really needs to fire everyone associated with this spot. It’s SO FAR off the mark…it literally made me say WHAT? about ten times… HOW in HELL does this sell anything? Please Microsoft…STOP this stupidity…have some dignity.
Nicely said.
re “have some dignity”
Why would they start now!!!?
That was just … bizarre.
Who is this ad targeting?
What’s the message?
Why was the interior of her house ruined?
Is this some British cultural thing that we in the new world would never understand?
How have Windows PC sales fared in the targeted market, since the release of this ad?
Excuse me, while I now forget this ad.
Hey, look, a puppy! ….
A truly aspirational brand.
I almost aspirated!
Love the last line…
“I’m a PC, and I’m going to kill him.”
Says it all.
Right! “Yeah, I got a free touch screen thingy out of this deal, but I’m going to kill my boyfriend for letting these strangers wreck my house.”
The PC user experience. It is literally murder.
I’ll bet that her original comment was, “Wow, that looks a lot like an iMac, except much thicker and lots of plastic.”
There are just as many people in that ad hoc Microsoft store as the regular ones! lol
“After a long dry” heave
fixed it for ya
Hey MS, unless he is under some contractual agreement not to do so, you should bring out of retirement John Hodgman as “I’m a PC” and put some humor in it by having a cardboard cutout of Justin Long that Hodgman can pitch off to the side and Hodgman can boastfully declare, “FINALLY!”
Hey, it can’t be any worse then the pile of steamy ads MS puts out!
Except in real life, Hodgman is a Mac guy, and one smart fellow, so I’m thinking he is not available for that project. 🙂
If he can get the same payment for services that Seinfeld received, I think he would. Hell, I’m a big Mac guy, and I’d gladly lighten Ballmer’s wallet on a stupidly made commercial… Even if I had to share the screen with Bill Gates!!!
“because I believe there isn’t a computer out there better than the one I already have”……..ok stop right there, if the next line was ‘because i just bought a new iMac’… we could end this horrible campaign and move with our lives.
No tower any more… But same viruses, same spyware, same junk software, same “evaluation crap”, same bulkies PC, same support problem where HP blames Microsoft software and Microsoft blames HP hardware. Yes July, you are so lucky
You have got to be kidding me! Who came up with this idea? Who greenlighted this for production? Absolutely awful. This commercial’s concept is so bad on so many levels that further words escape me at how ridiculous this commercial is.
Woman: “Did you keep the boxes? I’d like to return them and get a couple iPad 2’s”
Well, isn’t that just loverly…
Is that how they sell PCs in the UK? One at a time, after building a shop in each home? Sounds a bit Tupperwarish. The only way to get them to leave is to buy something.
So, this is the new Microsoft retail strategy?
Build a MicroStore in everyone’s house..
I like this strategy, I like it a lot!!
That’s one way for Ballmer fulfill his desire to beat the number of Apple Stores out there…
Now if you think about it, this ad makes a lot of sense. It is a $tupid ad target to $tupid people that is used to $tupid products. That makes slot of sense in Microsoft strategy.
This is proof Ballmer does NOT hire good advertising execs, because he believes his vision is “the one”.
Too bad Ballmer only looks in the mirror for confirmation with his one good eye.
I can’t even bear to give it a look. I have a very sensitive stomach.
“… those who waste their money on Windows PCs are vapid, pissy, ill-informed twits with hideous haircuts destined for severe cases of gorilla arm.”
Elitist, perhaps? This is why so many people find Apple fans to be snobby cultists. If you have a legitimate critique, of windows or the advert, focus on content. Otherwise you just come off as a twit.
Might I add that Julie is retarded and wouldn’t be “touch”ed by a barn animal.
“This is why so many people find Apple fans to be snobby cultists”
Because so many people are vapid, pissy, ill-informed twits?
Don’t worry, though. Thanks to Apple’s incredible mainstream success over the last 5 or so years, people have been getting informed and realizing that whole “Apple fans are snobby cultists” thing is a myth. 😀
I’m confused. What was the big thick black plastic thing propped up in the middle of the table? The thing the husband ended up with at the end? Hideous beast that was.
Apple should find Julie and show her an iMac. Then her husband can live in the doghouse where he belongs.
I love the ads they’re running where the people in them keep proclaiming “to the cloud” as if they expect that to catch on in the same way that people say to google something. The service could be the best thing ever and “to the cloud” would be crap.
Ballmer must figure more friends drop by the average home in a month than customers drop by in the Mall PC Stores. This move triples his store traffic.
This ad is so bad. How can such a thing get produced by any advertising professional?
I recall MS once hired Wieden and Kennedy, one of the most creative agencies going. Microsoft wouldn’t approve anything good. I think the only thing they used was the line,”where do you want to go today,” and that is pretty weak.
1st rule of marketing. Sell your own products. Not other people’s products. What, in this ad, does Microsoft make? It only suits to confuse their already confused populous more. Microsoft does not make cool ‘no-tower’ computers. Maybe Monkey Man doesn’t know that…
Just like a PC. Easy to break into people’s privacy, whether it’s a virus or their home.
Is it OK to make an Ads without real world context like that in US? Because the Ads was just a disinformation. Really skewed.
Why does she threaten to kill that handyman at the end of the video?
Also, what’s the appeal of having a room in your house turned inti a PC store? Gross, if you ask me. They probably edited out the part where she threatened to call the cops.
I saw the ad last night on TV and thought WTF? After watching Apple’s iPad and other ads, I could not figure out the purpose of the MS ad. Then it hit me.
MS is promoting home privacy because if you set up a Microsoft Store in your home, no one will ever visit.
Brilliant!
Well said! that gave me a good laugh! 🙂
If your ad agency suggests directly responding to your competitor’s ads, fire them.
Hmmm… no Apple hardware in the mix? Isn’t the best windows machine out there a Mac with the ability to run their microshafts cruddy operating system?
Yes it’s stupid and unrealistic, but I think it’s a good commercial. “PC in the House”, that’s golden. It’s cute and to that end got a snicker out of me. You’d remember this commercial, thus it does its job. Sure she’s clueless, but so are tons of other pc and even mac users. I can understand’s hubby’s joy witnessing his wife see the light, although he’d be jumping up and down for pure joy if she’d gotten an iMac.
Boy that commercial really makes me want to dump my Mac Pro and run out and get one of these PCs.
Coming Soon to Bait Car: Thieves steal and then dump vehicles tricked-out with the latest Microsoft mobility products.
I saw this commercial on TV last night and could not believe it when she said she just didn’t think there was a better computer out there than the one she had. And then, in the end she ends up getting just another PC. Sheesh!
And that sort of bald-faced ignorance is exactly why Bill Gates is such a very rich man. He’s made his fortune off of other people’s stupidity.
No no, I think it was rathe-SQUIRREL…….
Very family oriented: “…and I’m gonna kill him.”
Why is Microsoft trying so hard to sell its partners products?
Isn’t this called subsidising if any another company does it?
OK, I guess I missed the part about “breaking and entering” is now an accepted and ‘cool’ thing to do. Oh, wait, I forgot this is M$, they’ve had no problem ripping off other companies’ copyrights and patents for years. Must be in their corporate DNA.
I’m a PC*:
* (P)urchaser of (C)rap;
There was more people in that Microsoft store (2-3) than there typically is in the Microsoft store by my house.
I spend 8 hours a day selling warranties and services on HP, Toshiba, MSi, and Lenovo junk. I do so with my iPhone in my pocket and my iPad at home. I even sold a Playbook the other day. I can vouch for the claim MDN makes; these really are uninformed, price-is-all-that-matters, all-they-have-ever-used, pay-extra-to-remove-the-trial-ware types.
But you know what… ignorance is bliss.
ohhh myyy effing god!!
please…just, please MS don’t…no..don…ahhh forget it!