Windows, not Walls

As someone that has to come up with taglines all the time... "Windows not Walls" is really good. It's got the alliteration. It's got a great use of the alternate meaning of Windows that ties back to a core advantage of the platform. You understand the point in a short and sweet phrase. It's so much better than the barf-inducing marketing-speak that usually comes from the company. "The wow starts now". "Clear, confident, connected". Ugh. This one really works, where those offer nothing but vapor and arrogant disconnection with how people think and speak. However, it does seem to be an inherently defensive concept. What walls? Whose walls? It seems like it's all about Apple and it's "closed" system. And that is a mistake. If they really are going to address Apple head-on, they are walking into a trap. They'll be boosting the perceived size of Apple's competitive threat without adding much to the conversation. It's been said many places and it's true. Microsoft with 95% of the market must ignore Apple with their 5% in public, lest they acknowledge and legitimize the competition. Then there's the problem of who they are trying to approach. Apple has a clear target: unsatisfied PC users. That informs the writing. I'm going to assume that Microsoft isn't targeting Apple users. That'd be a waste of their money. So they must be targeting XP hold-outs, right? How does the notion of "Windows not Walls" aim at that group? The other thing is, will it ring true? Apple's ads resonate because they ring true for the people who have had trouble with their PC. Are windows users going to recognize what they're not missing? Again, "Windows not Walls" seems to be built out of the question "what makes us better than Apple". If this is the case, then Microsoft really must be worried about Apple. That's amazing and, again, a validation of Apple's ad effectiveness. But maybe they're not going to do that. Maybe it's going to be all about the diversity of choice in the Windows PC world with only vague references to Apple's closed approach. Not sure how that will move the needle on XP to Vista sales... but we'll see. Then again, if they think "the Mojave Project" makes sense for them... I wouldn't put it past them to attack Apple directly. After all, Mojave's core concept was "Vista actually is great, has no problems, and you hate it because you're an ignorant baffoon who just got duped." Dumb, Dumb, Dumb. Don't blame your customers. Is that so hard to understand? Then there's the dust-covered Seinfeld decision. It certainly doesn't suggest targeting a youth demographic, that's for sure. How many college students right now will turn their heads toward the TV when they hear Seinfeld's voice? How many have seen his show? Some of Apple's most enormous gains are in education, which has the potential to carry over into life-long purchases. I would think Microsoft should target these people. 18 to 24/30. Not 30 to 60 to the exclusion of this younger group. How did "Bee Movie" do? Not great. It's domestic gross didn't top their production costs, and I bet the foreign box office just barely got them over the top of their marketing costs. Kids don't know Seinfeld. But who knows. You never can tell what will come of a campaign or what might get traction. Here's my advice: Have gates be himself and be honest. He's admitted to Vista issues openly on many occasions. He's the leader of the industry and his honesty has been refreshing and endearing. OPEN ON BILL GATES IN HIS OFFICE AT MICROSOFT. THE COLOR PALETTE IS FLAT AND DRAB. "Hello, America. I'm Bill Gates. No, I'm not running for office... GATES GETS UP FROM BEHIND HIS DESK. I just wanted to let you know that our team has been working very hard on Vista... with a little help from this... (he pulls out an indiana-jones-style whip from his back). And well, it's really come along way. More compatible. Faster. I mean, wow. It's really good now. So take a second look. Seriously... Or else... (with a little smirk as he lifts the whip) CUT TO VISTA LOGO ENDPAGE. We hear a whip sound.

Keep in mind the sentence above that says, "But Mr. Seinfeld will be one of the key celebrity pitchmen, say people close to the situation." has a key word in it...see if you can figure out what that word is. Microsoft is not stupid, as many like to try to say. If you think that they gained their entire market dominance through monopoly abuse, you are sadly mistaken. Remember, it is not illegal to hold a monopoly in a given market segment, only to abuse it...so MS had to build up that dominance before they could abuse it. Lets wait and see what this marketing campaign holds for them...It really cannot be any worse thant the "Mac vs PC" series that Apple has been resting on for the past few years. Yeah, they are funny - but I think that most people see them for what they are, a satirical jab at Microsoft that A LOT OF PEOPLE have seen and laughed at...but not that many have acted upon. I still feel that Apple would have been better served actually demonstrating some of the OS X features that they feel would coerce a potential customer to make the move. Instead, they have come off as the pesky little neighbor kid that really wants to belong. With the education market dominance that Apple used to hold you would have thought that eventually that would have turned into sales in the consumer market, but for some reason, it didn't. After all, how many of our kids grew up in K-12 using Macs, way before setting eyes on a Windows PC? I am not a marketing person at all...but I would think that the goal is to sell product...not try to appear cool. --tayme

Hmm, I'm not sure this will go down to well outside of the US. Seinfeld isn't what you could call a comedy legend in the UK. In fact, i reckon they should have gone more for the likes of Jimmy Carr, who appears to be a stiff, public school educated toff, untill he opens his mouth to reveal some very sharp, and satirical wit. Oh well.

Seinfeld is one of the celebrity pitchmen. Candidates: Shelley Berman. Mort Sahl. Norm Crosby. As one of three people who didn't watch Seinfeld, I expect to laugh at the funny parts and ignore the message, just as I did with the Apple ads (which did have one effect on me: they made me a Hodgman fan).

Here's something that CRACKED me up. Enjoy! >>If Steve Jobs had been marketing Vista, he would've gotten up on stage and said: "Just one more thing. We've got this cool new OS we want to share with you today. It's incredibly secure, packed with innovation, but it's still a little rough around the edges. "No one in history has done this before--an entire consumer-ready OS dedicated from the ground-up to the idea of your security... "A lot of our developers will need time to catch up with our new security model, so we've left in this noisy security mode to let you know when you're running an old app. Let's take a look... "Vista is designed for computers that are still one or two years away from production, so I'm not going recommend that you run this on your current system--but you'll want to make sure your next computer is running it. "This is the future of desktop computing--this is the future of Windows. If you want to help us out by trying this out this groundbreaking new OS, we'll have a few copies to give away here today..."<<

they really should use the guy that plays jim in the office, Would make a good counter to justin long

@gorath Jimmy Carr would have been great. Billy Connolly might have been able to fill requirements on both sides of the pond. The major thing I remember about Seinfeld was the latest Mac that was always in the room. Paul is right to point out that Windows outsells OS X 30:1 •Unfortunately 21 of those go to Enterprise where no one has any choice. •Another 4 go to Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and parts of Asia where Apple is not in the market. So the real figure is 5:1 and that soon will be 4:1 Where people actually have a choice Windows continues to do well but Apple and OS X is catching up - and quickly.

Billy connoly would have been really good as well, but the reason I thought of Jimmy car was because of his initial appearance of being staid, hiding a crazy sense of humour. That analogy fits well with windows (from haters and lovers' perspectives! haha!)

@bettieblu Point 1 - (as I've already stated), I don't work for Microsoft. I have in the past but don't right now. Point 2 - Frankly, I find this thread tedious. Nobody outside the people involved with the campaign knows anything so all we have is idle speculation on rumors. Not a lot of meat to dig into. This thread is roughly equivalent to watching political pundits debate each other on who the Vice-Presidential candidates will be. Lots of opinions, no information backing up those opinions and a mutual agreement to ignore that it's a total waste of time.

@mikegalos - You need to lighten up and learn to have a little "Friday Fun"!!! Life is too short to always be as serious as you are on this site. --tayme

Wait, there's a presedential election going on in America? Wow, I hadn't heard.

@Tayme Just how much can you manage to get wrong in a single post? "Yeah, they are funny - but I think that most people see them for what they are, a satirical jab at Microsoft that A LOT OF PEOPLE have seen and laughed at...but not that many have acted upon. " By "most people" you probably mean the Windows centric tech writers, bloggers and the people who read and comment on such sites. That probably includes you and maybe most of your friends but you know what Tayme .... Apple's campaign is not directed at these guys. As John said above, it's directed at Joe-non-techie-Windows-user .... of which there are many hundreds of thousands more. "I still feel that Apple would have been better served actually demonstrating some of the OS X features...." Why? That's just boring! Computer users already know what an OS looks like. Apple and it's agency are addressing consumer's other "needs". The iPhone ads showed how the phone works. Because it was different to the other phones on the market. What's the betting that Microsoft's campaign 'demonstrating' Vista? "I am not a marketing person at all..." Obviously! "....but I would think that the goal is to sell product...not try to appear cool." How about selling product....AND appearing cool? Last year Apple's 'Get a Mac' campaign won an EFFIE award. That's not 'cos the ads looked great or were directed Fellini. That's an advertising effectiveness award! From 1Q06 (prior to the campaign) to 2Q08 Apple has moved from 4% US market share to 8.5%. Source Gartner. To add a little detail .... that is an 88% growth in unit sales .... in just over 2 years. In the same timeframe the rest of the US PC market grew by just over 7%. "...but I would think that the goal is to sell product" Yes it is! Before anyone starts quoting Apple's worldwide share ..... don't! The Getamac campaign was primarily a US thing. Smaller campaigns in the UK and Japan.

Apple. Much is made of the US (in reality all of North and South America) market but the European market is up 47% over the last year and about half the units shipped as in the Americas. Considering that the Apple's presence here is largely confined to Western Europe (as opposed to Eastern) the figures are impressive, as is the growth.

>>Frankly, I find this thread tedious.<< You're the only one who finds the subject boring. Check out the rest of the web.

Ocean If we're going to talk about advertising, rather than speculate on a future campaign where virtually everything is unknown, how about commenting on Apple's admission that they paid actors to stand in line in front of stores in Europe to make the iPhone 3G rollout look like a bigger deal than it was. You have to have a herd for the sheep to join and if there's no herd available, buy one.

@MaryW I'm betting that you have an applo logo on your car... So, Apple wins all these advertising awards huh? Wow, I'm just so impressed!! Maybe if they spent a little less on all the ads they could bring down the prices to where they should be...

bettieblu If this were a discussion of buying and selling stock, you'd be right. It isn't. You're not. As for year over year growth, going from 3.4% to 3.5% in share over 11 years works out to 0.27% growth year over year. A quarter of a percent annual growth rate isn't exactly something to brag about.

Anything to change the topic, eh Mike?

Mike I think tayme may have a point about you. That cartoon about being right all the time, and my previous comment about you being all over this thread are dead on. I am pretty sure this discussion was about MS advertising campaign to turn around its image and how they are going to use Jerry Seinfeld to help do that. Any talk of Market share started with Mary I think, and then you took that conversation negative with your market share numbers. I could argue why Apples market share of 3.5% = annual sales of almost half of Microsoft's with a market share of 92,93,94%?, all day long....but its Friday and this is just some IT blog that does not matter on any day. So I yield to your wisdom and intelligence, and I declare you the winner at the Winsuper site blog-fest. Have a great weekend.

Personally speaking, I do not find Jerry Seinfeld funny at all. Not in the slightest. I absolutely disliked his show with a passion, because there wasn't the slightest hint of comedy. Then there was the Puerto Rican Day episode. BOOOOO! Now some of the catchphrases like yada, yada, yada, I'm very fond of. Thats about as far as I get Seinfeld. Honestly, there are comedians or actors with comedic talent who would have been a much better choice. Robin Williams comes to mind. Carlos Mencia, Cedric The Entertainer, Chris Rock, Brendan Fraiser, Will Smith, and/or Vince Vaugh would have been my pick's. Or go with an actor with a commanding presence like Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Harrison Ford, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, or Denzel Washington. I think those guys would have been much stronger pitchmen. You could name plenty of actresses too. I think parroting Justin Long is lame and self defeating. There are actors much cooler and with more geek cred. I believe the idea is to appeal Vista to the average users out there. The goal is to dispell the fiction from the fact, squash the many lies, deceptions and exaggeratons put out there by ignorant tech pundints and Apple. There would be so many ways to make a creative commericial that unique, humorous, thought provoking, and sells the product. That all being said, I do like the "Windows, not Walls." Thats really deep on many levels. You could go back to Ronald Reagan famous, "Mr. Gorbachev, Open this Gate! Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!" moment or Obama's "The Walls of the 21st century" moment. Or you can use Bill Clinton's "Bridges to the 21st century" and highlight the popular history of Windows. The spirit of how 95, 98, 2000, and XP lead up to Vista. Also, Microsoft could use the footage of Macworld 1997, where Gates invest and helps save Apple. I will withhold full judgement till I see the footage and public reaction.

subzero Exactly. We really have no idea what the ad campaign will be about and we'll actually know something in a few weeks. If I'm going to speculate, I'd say that the walls reference will be to being trapped inside systems that don't have the huge range of software that's present in Windows. Something like "Any software will let you edit a blog but what if you need to do x? (image of user running into a wall) (cut to image of real professional using Windows Vista to do x).(voiceover - "Your life needs Windows, not walls")

@Mike Gosh Windows is doing so well on the sub-continent. Let's forget about the massive Apple growth in places like the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand It is a little bit like the Germans saying in WWII we are the bees knees in Mauritius, let's forget about D Day and the Russian front.

I do think Seinfeld is a great choice. He is well liked by a large population of people, and he has purposely retired from most new work. If you look at the rest of the cast of the show, they have all tried a lot of different roles and none of them stick. They are just too well known in their famous roles. They touched on this in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which both came from the same person of course (Larry David). The movie Hollywoodland also is a great example of this. Seinfeld has avoided this fate because of his limited roles. A well liked and funny person is a perfect foil to a whiny kid.

johnpapola: Wow, now this is the type of post I read these discussions for. I wish there were more people such as yourself making posts.

"He routinely sells out arenas, and his recent animation voice debut did very well. " I guess it depends on how you measure it. It certainly wasn't a critical success: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bee_movie/ And was it a financial success? Not even close: Bee movie box office take was just under $127 million: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=beemovie.htm Production costs ran close to $150 million (according to suite101.com): "Bee Movie's initial box office is cause for concern for DreamWorks Animation, since the studio reported that the flick cost $150 million to make." So how, exactly do you measure "success"?