You Mean the World's Not Flat in Vista-ville?
Looks like CP+B's finally doing something with the $300 million in ad money Microsoft gave it. Oops, this isn't a CP+B campaign.
The divine task: reposition Vista.
"Vista is now actually better than its reputation. That's a marketing issue," observed Tim Anderson of the ailing OS -- which, to be fair, was getting panned even before it went live. (Warts and all.)
One of the new ads, at left, reads, "At one point, everyone thought the Earth was flat. Get the facts about Windows Vista." Clicking on that brings you to this page, which in part reads:
When Windows Vista debuted in January 2007, we declared it the best operating system we had ever made. "Windows Vista is beautiful," The New York Times raved. It's humbling that millions of you agree.But we know a few of you were disappointed by your early encounter. Printers didn't work. Games felt sluggish. You told us--loudly at times--that the latest Windows wasn't always living up to your high expectations for a Microsoft product.
Well, we've been taking notes and addressing issues.
That's charming. Touching, even. But do they mean it? And what happens now?
Comments
To me, this will probably go one of two ways:
1. CPB comes out with something absolutely brilliant, which despite success eventually scares enough of Microsoft's bureaucracy that it gets watered down. Crispin then "fires" the account.
2. CPB comes out with something really watered-down which makes the Microsoft bureaucracy feel like they're innovative without actually being innovative. Crispin then "fires" the account.
I am not sure many people ever subscribed to the "Flat Earth" theory. The Incas, Mesopotamians, Greeks, and Romans all knew the world was round, and about how big it was.
James -- Almost no one believed the Earth was flat. The ancient Greeks famously had several elegant proofs of its sphericity.
They mean they've been crafting memos and obtaining dynamic feedback from focus-group oriented interchanges.
Yes, the Times review said Vista looked beautiful. Then for the next 20 grafs it wrote about how poorly the thing functioned. That's some good selective quoting, CP+B.
yeah, but then Thomas Friedman proved the earth WAS flat !!! Therefore I think the only way out of this mess is to have CP&B hire Thomas Friedman to be Vista's spokesperson !!!
"She wanted some software ... and my hardware she got."
I'm bracing myself for about 8 months of Vista dick jokes.
Really quite poor. And boring too.
I love the answers they provide to "Is Windows Vista really just a prettier version of Windows XP, as some people say?"
"less than half the vulnerabilities" than XP, a media center that was already available in XP and that no one uses, parental controls that no one uses... and it's "sexier". Seriously. That's it. Those are the big reason to pay for a Vista upgrade, according to Microsoft! So I think the answer they are providing to the question of whether it's just a prettier version of XP is "Yes."
Not CP+B's work.