You fight back by putting up a recording booth where you can record your own “I’m a PC” ad in front of all of your competition’s stores. I’m not sure how effective it is to throw these booths up. 
If someone’s in the Apple store or heading to an Apple store, there’s probably a very good chance that they have made up their mind already. You’d probably be more effective sticking these booths right next to the calculator aisle (ZING?). A dorky ad and recording booth is not going to change my mind, would it change yours? I mean, you could either play with sexy computers in the store, or you could go and record an ad? What would you choose? Microsoft would come off a lot better if they just ignored Apple completely. Give it up guys. Go do your own thing because trying to beat someone at their own game doesn’t exactly work. It could be coincidence, or it could be that Microsoft just spent a lot of money on an ad campaign just as bad as the Seinfield ones. My guess is that it’s the later more than it’s the aforementioned “coincidence”. What do you think about the ads? Do you think they’ll be effective?
Here’s a call to arms! I’d love to see some people record an “I’m a Mac” ad at one of these booths with their isights. That would make my month.
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:00 pm
In my opinion a lot of people are going to be coming out of the apple stores and record apple ads in these booths. Microsoft is going to spend millions of dollars trying to search through the footage looking for maybe 1 ad that is going to PC related. Thumbs up to the marketing/advertising department on this one.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I'm really disappointed in this article. Incredibly disappointed.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
The problem with ignoring the competition is that the competition doesn't stop. Microsoft has been ignoring Apple's pointed attacks at them this entire time and look where it's got them. This gesture of theirs shows that they're trying new things and aren't afraid to go a little guerrilla in their campaigning. Suggesting that they should just put their advertising next to the calculator aisle just seems like a defensive “Apple Fanboy” sort of response that you would see in the comment section of Digg.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Do you honestly think that putting these booths outside of an apple store is going to “convert” anyone? Microsoft holds a huge percentage of the market share…why on earth would you address the other… 8%? What successful marketing plan would sets out to address less than 8%? There money could be better spent somewhere else. By refuting apple's claims, there only legitimizing apple's claims.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Why on earth wouldn't you address the other 8%? That's still a decent chunk of change in the end, especially if Apple's market share is steadily increasing. I don't see what harm there is in doing this sort of marketing if it manages to at least get the attention of one or two people. It doesn't have to “convert” anyone so much as get a message across, which it does. Also, I don't quite buy the logic that refuting apple's claims only legitimize their claims. What claims are we talking about exactly? Because Apple makes a lot of “claims” about “PCs.”
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November 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Why on earth wouldn't you address the other 8%? That's still a decent chunk of change in the end, especially if Apple's market share is steadily increasing. I don't see what harm there is in doing this sort of marketing if it manages to at least get the attention of one or two people. It doesn't have to “convert” anyone so much as get a message across, which it does. Also, I don't quite buy the logic that refuting apple's claims only legitimize their claims. What claims are we talking about exactly? Because Apple makes a lot of “claims” about “PCs.”
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