“Most people judge ads by what they see. Good ad, bad ad, end of story,” Ken Segall writes for Observatory. “Of course, it’s a little deeper than that.”
“As is often pointed out around these parts, there’s a little thing called ‘strategy’ — which is hashed out before creative teams start creating,” Segall writes. “Historically, Apple has been very smart about strategy, while Microsoft has been very … shall we say … un-smart.”
“Now that Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella has appointed Mark Penn to the position of Chief Strategy Officer, it’s a whole new ballgame, right?” Segall writes. “Not so fast. From what we know of Mark Penn, the gap between the quality of strategy at Apple and Microsoft isn’t about to shrink.”
“For starters, Penn has actually been Microsoft’s Executive VP, Advertising and Strategy, since mid-2012. He’s the architect of the company’s tasteless, cutesy and much-maligned ‘Don’t Get Scroogled’ campaign,” Segall writes. “Penn was a major player in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, ultimately ‘resigning’ mid-primary season. A New York Times article in 2008 described him as ‘a sometimes brusque number cruncher with centrist corporate sensibilities [and] few friends inside the campaign.’ Penn was also CEO of ad agency Burson-Marsteller. According to a 2008 Time Magazine article, Penn’s former clients include ‘drug companies, a tuna industry group, a tobacco firm and the controversial military contractor Blackwater USA.'”
Segall writes, “I can assure you, those who work on strategy at Apple and its agency TBWA\Chiat\Day have strikingly different credentials.”
Much more about Microsoft’s new “Chief Strategy Officer,’ Mark Penn in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: So far, new Microsoft CEO Nadella has already made two major mistakes:
Changing his mind from opposing Microsoft’s purchase of beleaguered iPhone roadkill Nokia and Mark Penn.
Off to a great start Satya. We like your strategy. We like it a lot.
Getting rid of BALLmer’s bull isn’t going to give them a whole new BALLgame even with an old pitcher from the Bull-PENN.
The fat lady has already sung.
the jury is still out on satya but he seems smart and level-headed. i miss ballmer
Charlie Manson looks smart and level headed compared to Ballmer.
Bring back uncle Fester.
But – But – MDN,
It’s HARD to say NO to Uncle Fester.
Especially when he’s busy Yelling at the top of his lungs and throwing Chairs and Shit.
M$ might actually be worse off without Ballmer. I did not see that coming.
“Penn was a major player in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign”
Losing track record? Sounds perfect for MSFT.
-jcr
Moved from onse loser, Hillary, to another.
Well done.
as an ex ad guy i’ll like to say this:
You can sell a lot of a bad product with a great ad campaign …. but not for long. Long term you need good products, consumers learn.
No point talking failed msft ad strategies without talking crappy msft products.
“… but not for long”
They’ve been selling a lot of Winblows for a very long time.
i wanted to address that in my original post but thought it would go too long:
crap Windows sold a lot because it was a ‘reasonable’ product for the ‘low price point’.
But low price means the companies don’t make money and give up: IBM gave up PCs, Dell went under, HP is debating stopping PC sales etc. (Mac is the most profitable ‘PC’ in the world taking 30% of the world PC profits)
when better products like iPad attack the price position, Windows PC sales go down.
also if you have a lot of tech expertise (like companies with IT staff or hard core gamers etc ) to keep them running Windows is OK .
(Also as an ex Ad guy I’ve continually lambasted apple for not attacking Win 8 which consumers hate, not one mac ad for five years since the mac pc guy if you don’t count the few cancelled ‘genius ads’. Apple in my humble opinion could have got even bigger Mac gains if they were aggressive ].
note also that Windows sales has been going down in spite of the gigantic amounts of advertising dollars Msft has poured into it. Msft has poured billions into Windows advertising (before you even add all the millions spent by HP, Dell, Lenovo, acer etc). In 2009 Msfts total ad budget was THREE TIMES Apple’s total ad budget (for macs, iPhones, retail stores, iPod etc.).
estimates for the Win 8 launch alone cost is between 0.5 to 1.8 billion in advertising.
And even with this monstrous ad spend the uptake for Win 8 is slow ( in spite of the fact OEMs are loading them into new machines).
Gigantic amounts spent on Zune, original windows phone marketing etc also didn’t help them from flopping.
Ballmer may be out as CEO, but you know Ballmer is going to throw his weight around.
Satya better have a constitution made of iron to stand up against both Ballmer & Gates on the Board, when he thinks he is right.
My guess: I have no clue if Satya wins.
Microsoft vs Apple in “Strategy Gap”… One company has one. Microsoft doesn’t.
“Don’t Get Scroogled” by Google? How about “Don’t Get S-Windowed” by Microsoft?
The difference is that Apple actually devises strategies, smart long-term strategies… Microsoft’s strategy is to react to its competition. Windows, Xbox, Zune, Windows Phone, and the tablet “kludgification” of Windows. None of that was part of a real “strategy” except the strategy of denial followed by panic.
Um, wouldn’t it be “sWindled?”
Or don’t be “Paned” by Windows. ( as in window pane)…
Microsoft tries to do too much and doesn’t do a good job at any of it. Apple on the other hand does only a few things and does an exceedingly good job at it. On the other hand, there’s Google who does a lot and some of it is god and some of it is bad, but they still maintain an image of being successful and innovative. Microsoft definitely can learn a thing or two from Apple and Google.
Microsoft could indeed learn a lot from them, but the business models, and the corporate cultures that sustain them, differ too much to admit of any realistic short-term change. Microsoft would need to complete its reorganisation before it could even begin to address this issue; it’s just too large to make a tight course correction. Kind of like RMS Titanic.
Microsoft -used- to employ a sound strategy: Either buy your competition, or destroy them with lies and other underhanded tactics. I guess that strategy isn’t working anymore.