CREATIVE STRATEGY - Why on earth did Microsoft approve these dull ads for Windows 7?

Client: "We've never quite cracked it with the launch campaigns for our operating systems."

Agency: "Vista?"

Client: "Quite.  But could you please not use that word in this building.  It ... disturbs people.  Let's focus on the here and now.  Windows 7."

Agency: "What's so special about Windows 7?"

Client: "Well, you know all the glitches and gremlins we've had with our stuff since ... er ... since Windows 2?  We've listened to our customers and put everything right."

Agency: "Really?  That's great.  We can build the campaign around real people and their real gripes.  It could be quite edgy and in-your-face."

Client: "Ah.  Well, when I said ‘listened to customers', I guess what I really meant is that we read all the complaint emails and a few geeks in a basement did whatever it is geeks do.  But I'm liking your idea for the campaign, though..."

And here is the campaign - no doubt after many long, tedious meetings where the brightest thing at the table was the account director's cufflinks. 

You have a series of ads featuring indifferent photos of smug 20-somethings whose lives have apparently been made complete because Microsoft effectively "put them in charge" of developing the all-new singing and dancing Windows 7. 

Puh-lease.  Neither the "quotes" nor the imagery are one bit credible.  The copy is all vague claim and no fact or substantiation. The individuals are, of course, not named.


Microsoft's Windows 7 posters: 'The individuals are, of course, not named'

And their pathetic little monologues are the stuff of a copywriter's nightmare. 

So if you'd like to enjoy some real advertising, check out Apple's piss-take TV commercial on the theme of Windows 7.  It's LOL stuff. 

Simon S Kershaw is a creative consultant. A former creative director at Craik Jones, Kershaw writes a weekly Creative Strategy column for marketingdirectmag.co.uk and the DM Bulletin