Apparently, the latest Microsoft ad was shot on the super sexy RED One digital video camera. Shame. The piece borders on painful, and is a cheap reproduction of a cheap reproduction of something that shouldn’t have cost what I’m sure it did in the end. Funny that it could only be created using a Mac. Not funny that RED’s name got a little dirt on it today.
Ads that have ranged from childish plastic-dinosaur-headed pc using morons to lame action adventure wannabes compels me to ask over and over and over again: “Microsoft—WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Does your demographic find this funny? Glad I’m not your demographic.
Trying to be cool. Trying to be funny. Trying to be smart. Trying, and failing. Why don’t you try just being yourself. Be honest. Be open. Be clear. What in sam hill does telling me that I’m going extinct by using last year’s “latest and greatest” Microsoft product have to do with building brand loyalty? How does showing me a lame commercial starring recently deceased MS Word character clippy make me want to trust you more than I trust a crocodile in heat?
I want to know that YOU know that you suck. That you have sucked. For the last 20 years. Then I want to hear you promise that you are changing. I want to hear that you are committed to making life better for everybody, not just your paying constituents. I want to hear you will begin supporting standards, openness, and honesty, and that this is your new mantra starting today. And five years from now when I check back in on you I want to see that this commitment has only grown stronger. Because frankly, at this point I don’t believe you any more than I believe Kim Jong-il when he says he only wants uranium so he can “…power the fizzle fountain at the National Children’s Friendly Forest Flower Exhibit, and not because I want to make nuclear warheads to blow those idiotic Americans all to hell.”
Here’s the original MS ad shot on the RED:
http://files.coloribus.com//?DLFILE=/files/paedia/reel/part_55/558211/file/ms.mp4
UPDATE: That file has been closed off to non-paying subscribers. Here’s the video on Youtube. It still sucks: