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windows 7 is great! too bad the marketing still sucks

Well, the results are in–Windows 7 is a pretty swell piece of software. Microsoft’s latest OS has been garnering nearly unanimous praise across the board, from both mainstream publications and elder geeks worldwide. But their marketing still kinda blows. Which I suppose shouldn’t be too surprising, considering the long history of milquetoast commercials that came out of the house that Billy G built. The Big Money’s Win Rosenfeld sums it up pretty well below:

(via the big money)

Seriously: could it get any more off-base and out-of-touch than the DIY Windows 7 launch party? Do you really have to ask?

LOOK! Adorable kids! Everyone loves kids!

Bah. This is what we in the industry like to call THE SUCKER PUNCH. This campaign’s several months old now, but I was really hoping they’d come up with something new and fresh for what’s turning out to be their best software release in the past decade. But no! They keep on rolling out those doe-eyed munchkins, trying to appeal to that strange part of our ids that still gets a kick out of watching frolicking kittens. (This, by and by, is perhaps the Cute Overload equivalent of the neutron bomb.)

Besides, is anyone really surprised that little pre-K Suzie Q knows her way around a laptop? We thought that’s been a given (if somewhat flawed) stereotype for years now–the younger you are, the more technically-savvy you are, to the point where we all just assume that most kids nowadays were already hacking into NORAD while they were in the womb.

Lookie here, folks: “so easy, even a kid can do it” was never a very effective message to begin with, and the way the spot paints the PC as a toy isn’t doing anyone favors. Your audience is smarter than that, MS. Show ‘em that your new booty-kicking OS will let them get stuff done, clearly and directly, without mucking about in twee cuteness.

Then again, maybe it’s all Steve Ballmer’s fault.

one response to “windows 7 is great! too bad the marketing still sucks”

1. Mike said on 03.10.10 at 7:12 am:

   Microsoft ROCKS!!! I feel so bad when people say bad things about microsoft! Apple looks like a toy, and Microsoft is the best!

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