Ridicule of „The Mojave Experiment“ hits the mainstream business press
by Ulf on August 13th, 2008 (Permalink)
A recent article in the Economist talks about various ads Apple has used over time to position itself, e.g. Ridley Scott’s famous 1984 video, and the current “Get a Mac” campaign that targets Microsoft Windows. Now that Microsoft has a marketing problem of its own (in the shape of the much-maligned Windows Vista), it has come up with “The Mojave Experiment“, which is supposed to show that Vista isn‘t as bad as people think it to be. The premise of the experiment is rather flawed, which has been widely discussed. Now the Economist -which is not generally concerned with operating systems- joins in: “You could be forgiven for wondering whether Apple had commissioned the advertisement. It was Microsoft at its worst.” Ouch. The article goes on to mention that Microsoft has also started to work with another ad agency…
August 13th, 2008 at 7:53 am
I use Windows Vista on my new PC at home and it seems fine. I haven’t had any trouble with it.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:45 am
And it gets worse - the new ad agency has delivered the first spot, featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. It’s so bad, you gotta go watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz6amk3P-hY. Not sure if that’s the kind of viral marketing they had in mind, though…
Acknowledging that Microsoft matters, The Economist comments on the spot, putting a more positive spin on it than most pundits.
September 12th, 2008 at 7:23 am
More merriment - Gates and Seinfeld, take two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBWPf1BWtkw
September 18th, 2008 at 7:30 am
This didn’t take long at all: Microsoft cancelled further spots involving Jerry Seinfeld.