Ben Worthen, a blogger with the Wall Street Journal (you can read WSL blogs without being a subscriber) noted recently that Microsoft has decided to take on Apple. Not on design or ease of use, but on advertising.
“We’re drawing a line right here on this stage,” [Microsoft VP Brad Brooks] told a crowd of Microsoft business partners, according to a transcript. “You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping? Well, we’ve woken up and it’s time to take our message forward,” he added. Brooks specifically mentioned Apple and that company’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads.
Apparently, people still don't want to upgrade to Vista, and Microsoft wants to convince them that the OS ain't all bad.
Ed Bott at ZDNet noticed a flat-earth ad on Microsoft's home page.
Is this the best Microsoft can do? No, apparently this isn't the start of the new, hard-hitting ad campaign, reports Brooks.
Come on, Microsoft, this is a losing war. Microsoft battling it out with Apple on the ad front is kind of like ... well, Microsoft battling it out with Apple on product design.
It's a waste of money. I had a conversation with Scott Weiss, the CEO of IronPort Systems (now part of Cisco Systems) about how to be successful. One of his main points was the radical idea of giving your customers what they want. Product, design, service, packaging, customer support -- that's where you spend your money.
Said Weiss: "It's better to spend that marginal marketing dollar to provide service that creates free marketing through word of mouth. That kind of marketing you literally cannot buy."
Unfortunately, Microsoft's business strategy was to set standards and create monopolies and "barriers to entry." Somewhere in that strategy, the needs of the customer got lost.
Too many corporations forget that fact. If you want to do well, do well by your customers. Pay attention to their needs, even above your own. It's number one on Google's list of avoiding evil: Focus on the customer and all else will follow."
Corporate evil comes in many forms. Putting shareholders ahead of customers, creating products to maximize profits instead of filling customers' needs, sacrificing website usability for advertisers, sending manufacturing to China to save money and getting back toxic products -- these are all things a responsible corporation would do better to avoid.
In the end, you get back customer loyalty. And no advertising in the world can buy that.
Not even Apple's.