P.S. You may be offended by this post and by its contents. If you are easily offended I suggest you close this window now. The blog post depicts and criticizes new Microsoft advertising which you are also likely to find very offensive. I have thought twice about the strong language used in this post, I feel it is justified and necessary. Either way, you’ve been warned.
Microsoft marketing has not been the same since they poked fun at themselves with the Microsoft iPod Parody.
What’s worse is that as cluttered as Microsoft marketing was before, it was still very business appropriate and useful in approaching serious business customers. While as the author of this blog I am perhaps the last person that should criticize Microsoft advertising gimics – as the partner that sells a ton of their software I must. Microsoft, it’s time to cut off the crack supply. Immediately.
First, but less concerning, are the supposed Microsoft ads for Zune. Straight out of an acid trip of a confused art school student, these short videos for Zune…. You just have to look at them. Let me use my business and engineering degree combined powers to interpret this one for you:
A walking, sniffing penis stumbles around the screen. It bumps into a far larger, thicker yet severely infected penis with many eyes. The bigger penis picks up the little penis, and with a squeeze of its ass cheeks shoots an eye into the smaller penis. The smaller penis then blinks back.
Microsoft Zune.
I am NOT kidding here. I dare you to watch the video. Then watch other videos.
What I am concerned about is the advertising for Office 2007. Titled “The Enchanted Office”, this cute cartoon uses a fantasy fable to ridicule away the business owners concerns, IT managers and virtually all IT support workers and staff. “Can’t find things – why don’t you hold on to this map.”
It is not that we’re dealing with customers that have no sense of humor. Not at all. However, these are serious topics concerning company’s productivity, budgets and IT staff retraining. If I approached them about a new product, proposed an upgrade and then proceeded to collectively ridicule every single one of the IT decision makers I would sincerely hope they would just throw me out. Having seen this cartoon the likely alternative would be a beating behind the company dumpster along with telling every one of their colleagues about a jackass that came in and tried to sell them software using insults and cartoons.
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