Really? Windows Phone 7 Commercials

This commercial is a bait and switch, and as is common with ads by Crispin Porter &#38; Bogusky, they rely on subtle psychological ploys to effectively influence your thinking.<p>The ad grabs your attention by highlighting the various ways in which society has become addicted to constantly checking information that resides in mobile devices. Several of the scenes deliberately emphasize activities in which another party is left deprived by someone using a phone. The most striking image to me was a father playing see-saw with his daughter, but we also have a game of catch, a neglected wife showing off lingerie, a neglected girlfriend during dinner. The scenes, and their inherent problems, are readily accessible and, importantly, <i>relatable</i> to our every day experiences. Lots of girlfriends in the house are nodding.<p>So now it has seduced you into agreeing with its premise, and you kind of wonder how the commercial proposes to fix it. Cell phones are bad. And then, at the very end, they propose a solution! Yes! We have been waiting for it. The tagline: "It's time for our phones to save us from our phones. New Windows Phone 7. Designed to get you in, and out, and back to life." YES! Wait, or is it a solution?<p>If we go back to the original montage building up to the release, the solution, note that what is being highlighted is the TACT of using a phone in particular situations, NOT, as the end implies, some kind of difficult to navigate software that makes information too lengthy a process to access. Have you ever checked email during dinner with a girlfriend on an iPhone or Android? How long does it take to glance at the new messages? 5 seconds? 7 tops? Guess what, she still disapproves. Same with the bedroom situation. If you think about it, the commercial, the first time you see it, seduces you into agreeing with the premise not that the phone takes too long to use, but that it doesn't belong in a bedroom! That it shouldn't be whipped out during a game of catch!<p>In short, the commercial highlights a common problem that it fails to solve. It presents the solution in a grammar that almost solves the problem, but then if you think about it more deeply, utterly fails to solve that problem. Put another way, if Windows Phone 7 does solve the time access problem, the commercial utterly fails to provide any evidence that it succeeds in doing so, because it highlights something else.<p>By not really featuring the product in any substantive way, the ad agency is showing that it can't figure out how to differentiate the product.

A reader comment from the linked BetaNews page describes it well.<p><i>Microsoft's marketing people must have sat around a table and pondered what features they could possibly promote about Windows Phone 7.<p>They couldn't really promote its use for office work, as then people would realize that the phone can't copy-paste text, making it unsuitable for the task.<p>They can't promote apps, as it is dwarfed by Android and iPhone (where did those Angry Birds go?).<p>So the marketing people chose to promote the default front screen with its blue tiles as Windows Phone 7's best feature.<p>Running a negative campaign like this can be risky. You see people frustrated with their phones, you see the Windows Phone 7 logo, and you subconsciously combine the two.<p>You see someone throw their phone into a toilet. You see the Windows Phone 7 logo, and combine to two events together.<p>I don't envy the ad agency that took on this unenviable job. It's a bit like taking on the ad campaign to promote New Coke.</i>

It's a clever commercial. I'm sure they'll get some <i>"can you hear me now?"</i> social echo chamber effect from it. I really hope people outgrow this compulsive phone fiddling disorder but I doubt WM7 is the solution. People aren't caught up in the minutia of the OS itself. They're mostly focusing on SMS &#38; Facebook apps at this point. Maybe games too.

I see most TV ads with the sound off (I mute the TV during ad breaks).<p>Watching this one with the sound off completely reverses the intended effect. At least one person I've seen mention it on Twitter wasn't paying attention to the sound and thought that Windows Phone 7 making you fall down the stairs was the point of the ad.<p>Lots of people don't pay that much attention to adverts, and what they'll take away from this is: people are dicks with Windows Phone 7.

This would be interesting if it meant that Microsoft was positioning Phone - As - Peripheral against Apple's Phone - As - Platform. But they aren't; look at their marketing material and they're triangulating and trying to have it both ways, getting you "in and out" when you want to be "in and out" but being "immersive" when that's what you want.<p>Telling: this ad doesn't really show the product.

Compare the message here to this "Disconnect to Connect" ad from Thailand: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ZrK2NryuQ" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ZrK2NryuQ</a>

I like to mess with my team at work every now and then. I use them as my own personal market research as they are from a host of different backgrounds (mech engineers, business administration, accountants, legal).<p>I showed them the advertisements and they all enjoyed it and thought it was clever and amusing. The consensus was even though they didn't find out anything about the phone, they all really want to find out. So for a study population of n=7, the advertisement 'worked'.

I actually like the first ad. But it's stolen from the "Really" skit from SNL: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntd5wWigzxs" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntd5wWigzxs</a>

These commercials make me not want to use any phone; they don't spur me to buy a windows phone

Very clever ad, but not for this product. I don't see the cure to distraction as getting "in and out" quickly. The iPhone gets me in and out again much quicker than my previous phone which is the whole reason I check it so often.

Something tells me that the depiction of a windows 7 phone as a phone you don't use very much is probably accurate.

Funny ads although I think it's difficult to market Windows Phone 7 as being easier/faster than others. Visually the iPhone and Android appear more beautiful and equal if not more obvious to use at first glance, in my opinion. Instead, this new Windows Phone 7 marketing feels like they are saying "buy our phones because the other ones are too difficult to pull away from". If someone wasn't paying much attention to the wording in the ad it may have the opposite intended message which is "buy our phone and you'll forget about everything else".

Windows Phone 7: it's the phone you won't want to use.

Doesn't make me want to buy one any more, but I thought it was genuinely funny. The bar is low, but its certainly the best MS ad we've seen in a very long time.

Microsoft has a habit of being a few years late on any technology. Internet Explorer 9, and it's HTML 5 and CSS 3 support, should have been released 2 years ago to be competitive. Yet IE9, and I'm sure the Windows 7 Phone will get massive market share..

It's interesting to try and position a smartphone towards people who hate obsessive smartphone users. I don't think that's the best positioning, though.<p>Microsoft has the power to keep crapware off of Windows phones and the Windows Phone UI seems better designed than Android, at least aesthetically. They're also on networks other than AT&#38;T, which is their competitive advantage against Apple. So at least until a Verizon iPhone comes out Windows can sell WP7 on those merits. Upon getting that beachhead, they can beat Apple in third-party apps by not being dicks to their developers.

So they are going after the middle aged segment. I don't see how this ad would appeal to kids.

I see message of this ad as: "You clearly love to use your phone. We'll change that".

Interesting "pre-ad". They'll need to show off more of the features before the phones actually hit the stores.

I find it rude to give your phone more attention than the person you're with, in social contexts. [As you might guess, I don't have a iPhone/smartphone/PDA]