I had the pleasure to post a guest post on Pedro’s “Will it brand” blog… There were many interactions about the Microsoft Ads and their branding strategy, so Pedro invited me to write something about it, and I decided to write a few words on why Microsoft is far from the people. Enjoy.

Microsoft Ads are Fun

But the fun is in the fact that not even a $300 million dollar ad campaign seems to be able to save Microsoft from ruining an already ruined image. (Disclosure: Yes, I am a free/open source software activist).

Ok, Microsoft is a huge and respectable company and they can hire Jerry Seinfeld, Willie Nelson, Barack Obama or even Jessica Rabbit to duet with Bill Gates… but the truth is that their company is so far from what people really want and think that advertisement alone cannot save them anymore at this point.

Microsoft needs to face the fact that we’re living in a new age. They have figured it out, but they are not facing it seriously. The industrial-age has ended, our kids were born in the Information age, in a networked society, in a culture where almost everything which is digital is (or is expected to be) “Free“.

The advancement of alternative Free Softwares for many proprietary (paid) softwares, free encyclopedias (remember when you had to buy Britannica?), free newspapers, digital music and movies (p2p anyone?)… what isn’t free by nature today is shared freely in p2p networks.

So, why do they still impose their “PC” monopoly power over the people? Why do we still have to pay absurdly high prices for a copy of Windows or MS Office (and remember that after buying it, it is not yours)? Let alone if you are a small business trying to keep all your software “legal”.

Have you ever wondered why Microsoft sometimes gives away their software to students (specially in developing countries)? What will they do when they are no longer students? Will they be able to break their dependency on these products and find cheaper or free replacements or will they have to pay forever more? Microsoft has built their fortune on their pioneering software policies but nowadays it doesn’t make sense anymore. I will avoid entering in details about all the criticism and litigation that exist around Microsoft..

All of this makes me think that the best advertising MS could do now is just not to advertise. Just disappear for a while. Take time to review their products and their strategy in the software field and acknowledge that it takes much more than an ad campaign to bridge the gap between their 30+ years of traditional way of doing business and marketing and, for example, the Google way of doing business and marketing. Google was born in this “Information-networked-free-culture” age and people today understand their brand much better than Microsoft’s… Still wondering why?

Anyway… Their ads are their problem. In the meantime let’s have some fun with Nintendo’s Wii:

PS.: this is not a real ad from Nintendo, of course.