No, not that sort of Break Up. They’ve launched a new video in the last few days that encapsulates really very, very nicely what’s wrong with “old marketing” in 2 minutes and 6 seconds. Well worth a look.
The film shows lunch between the old school advertiser and today’s “consumer”, concluding in the consumer rejecting all the advertisers’ inducements and walking out on him.
A very nice piece of work.
My only slight worry is that the implication behind the film is that Microsoft has all the answers for this old school advertiser - if only he would listen! Well, it’s certainly true that using the Microsoft ad network (or any online network for that matter) should certainly be part of the solution for most brands these days. But that’s promoting the medium, not the message. In other words, the advertiser should think joined up online and integrated marketing campaigns, create a dialogue with the user (the days of the “consumer” are long gone) and engage them.
So is this the case of MS over-promising what they can deliver? Does it matter, or is creating dialogue and debate the real message here?
The other concern with this ground-breaking work (and it is ground breaking, I think) is that the rest of MS advertising doesn’t really demonstrate this new understanding. I mean the Office Dinosaur campaign, with the implication that unless Microsoft customers upgrade (that’s most of you, people) you’re a dinosaur.
Anyway, my main point is that it’s nice work by a part of Microsoft that obviously “gets” it. Just a matter of time before it’s congruent with the rest of the company.
I love this video! We showed it at the MDA (Mobile Data Association) quarterly seminar and I think it really hit home. Let’s hope the message filters through both Microsoft and the wider advertising and marekting industries.
While I agree that it’s a nice way to relay a certain message, I also think Microsoft is shooting itself in the leg with it. Its use of the ‘consumer’ label is annoying and telling - it’s how Microsoft perceives all of us, as consumers, walking and surfing pockets of loose change waiting to be spent on advertised goods. Using ‘web user’ or ‘user’ or plain ‘person’ would have been far better and not detrimental to the message. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a Freudian slip, but it’s not far from that either…