I’m not playing dumb here: I really don’t know why Microsoft is so defensive about Apple. Despite Apple’s inroads in market share (including, apparently, 91% of the $1000-plus PC market), Windows is still by far the dominant OS on computers worldwide. Windows 7 will probably sell more copies in the first day than any Mac OS upgrade does in its first month, just by virtue of shipping with new PCs. (But don’t quote me on that. I’d love to be proven egregiously wrong.)
Sure, most of Microsoft’s success over the years has come by copying Apple, or by acquiring other innovators. But still, some of the things Microsoft has been doing lately seem so reflexive, so derivative, so defensive, so… desperate. The “I’m a PC” ads and today’s news about hiring away Apple Store employees are just the tip of the iceberg.
And then, courtesy of the Nerdery, we have this: perhaps the saddest statement of all. One would be inclined to think this is a joke. But the production values and the quality of the acting (enthusiasm!) suggest it has to be legit. Begging the question: WHY? SWEET JESUS, WHY???
Believe it or not, I actually am enthusiastic about Windows 7. I probably won’t buy it on release day, but I almost definitely will buy it before my Windows 7 RC license expires next June. Still, who the hell is going to throw a party like this? And who would come to it, other than to give them a wedgie?
Come to think of it, after watching this video, I almost want to give myself a wedgie. But it was all worth it for what comes at 5:43. Priceless.
But just in case I haven’t adequately dissuaded you (and you know who you are), here’s how you can host your own.
To answer you question there are two people that I follow and listen to on the interweb who are throwing a party. Paul Thurott (blowhard) and Leo Laporte (mac guy). Come on don’t you want free Windows 7 napkins? This is for the nerdiest of the nerds. You know you want to throw one, I know I do.
Holy Effing Ess. This is almost worse than the Magic Bullet infomercial where a 20-year-old is dressed like an old lady.
I wonder how it feels to be this sort of actor…
I can see Leo Laporte doing this. “Ordinary” people, though? Hmmm…
Incidentally, you really should the map showing all of the registered Windows 7 house parties. Really? Really? 343 house parties in the Twin Cities? 866 in Chicago? 1553 in New York? (At least I assume that’s New York… hard to see where the epicenters of those big green circles are.)
I just, frankly, find that hard to believe.
One more thing: just what is this House Party thing anyway?
Sounds like the 21st century version of Tupperware parties. Fuck.
I refuse to believe that. Unless employees of certain electronics superstores are required to say they’re hosting these things, I’m calling big time bullshit.
I am seriously considering doing it just to get a free copy of Windows 7. Why not have a party for this? It can be as cheesy or fun as you make it. Who cares how bad this video is? Scott you could even boot camp install it on your mac. Imagine…a Windows party being done with a Mac.
Hmmm… tempting. It didn’t occur to me that the
corporate toolsparty hosts would get free copies of the software. But even if I were to host one, I don’t know anyone (besides you, maybe) who’d want to attend.You calling me a corporate tool?
Hey maybe Frank would fly out for this.
We could have a Three Options reunion and tape some of our performance and post it for the party.
I’m in! I think I still know the material.
Come on, man… anyone who does any of that House Party stuff is a corporate tool, that’s the point of the whole thing!
That said, if we could tie it into a Three Options gig, we could make it look like we have some major corporate sponsorship.
Sellout.Sweet.I care about how stupid that video is.
Well, that’s embarrassing. And that cutaway and overdub just after the one-minute mark is sooo bad. I mean, there’s audible pops before and after the added “call customer service if you have any questions.” Ouch! There’s a lot of sloppy edits in there. I noticed that almost every time someone’s about to sip a drink or pop a snack in their mouth there’s a cut. Man, this is pathetic.
This is brilliant: http://www.cabel.name/2009/09/windows-7-party.html
And here I was thinking Coda was the best thing Cabel Sasser has ever done…
I do have to admit though, reading some comments and thinking more about the whole thing… it may have been lame on purpose. If Microsoft wanted the thing to go viral, well… it did. Way more than it ever would have if it wasn’t unbelievably stupid.
You may be giving them a bit too much credit. Remember their ill-fated Seinfeld ads, and the John Hodgman rip-off. Those were supposed to be enjoyable but weren’t. I’d say the idea is definitely a little tongue in cheek, but probably not as sharp as you’d want it to be if you really wanted people to enjoy it.
Oh, and that Cabel video is EXCELLENT.
Seinfeld and these adds both intended to be viral. Especially this House Party add. It is on You Tube (definition of viral) and the House Party website. Come on. That has viral written all over it. Look at how much attention it is getting. If you are going to throw one of these parties you are fully a geek. So the the add is cheesy. Deal.
I by the way thought the Seinfeld adds were brilliant. Don’t like the laptop hunter add so much.
Intent and result are not synonymous. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Trying to MAKE something viral is a slippery slope. Did Microsoft want these adds to be ridiculed virally, or did they think people would be delighted? I highly doubt that they expected people to bust on them very hard; they have proven countless times what little sense of humor they have. In fact, if you go to the home page for this video, you’ll notice that “Adding comments has been disabled’. Gee, I wonder why…
I imagine that all ad companies now throw the word “viral” out to their clients as a selling point. “We’ll make a viral ad! The kids will pass it around the YouTube!”
Well I’m sorry, but just posting something on YouTube does not make it “viral”. And I know everyone loves to spout the adage about how all publicity is good publicity, but P.T. Barnum died in the 1890s.
For the record, I don’t give two shits about the Mac vs. PC thing. I’ve used both, and find both companies equally interesting and nauseating. But I will say this, when it comes to marketing, Microsoft always comes off like a doddering, unhip uncle who wants to “chillax” with the kids, impress them with his knowledge of Heavy D and the Boys, and drive them to the mall so he can get a contact high off of youthfulness.
Are you telling me putting Seinfeld in a commercial who had not done squat for years into a commercial was not intended to be viral? The intent is there.
I can see with the House Party it may or may not have the result though. But how can it not with Seinfeld? It was news before the adds even aired.
Fun stuff Scott. This has to be one of your most active comments I have ever seen. Keep up the interesting stuff.
“Are you telling me putting Seinfeld in a commercial who had not done squat for years into a commercial was not intended to be viral? The intent is there.”
I’m saying that whether or not that ad was meant to be a “viral ad” is irrelevant. Their intent was definitely to drum up interest in the ad specifically by having Jerry Seinfeld in it. Don’t confuse “promotion” and “hype” with “viral”… it was a television commercial with mainstream news outlets talking about it before and after it aired. Yes, it was also put online, but what isn’t these days?
I hardly consider an obvious commercial that was announced ahead of time to be a viral video. To me, a viral video or ad is something that emerges from beyond the mainstream, pushed to the surface in a meme or through the rumblings of the public. With most viral ads the idea is to create a video that seemingly advertises nothing but is interesting, and then reveal it to be more than what it seems.
Consider an actual viral outbreak. H1N1 started with a few people getting sick in another country, then got a little play on TV, then blew up into mainstream media crazy town.
If Microsoft was releasing H1N1 as a “viral campaign”, they’d set up a special day for it, send press releases to all the networks, brand 120 crop dusters and dump it methodically across the country, then film happily clear-skinned, ethnically mixed people looking to the sky and sucking back the spray. That’s not viral, that’s a damn assault.
Regardless, I submit that with the Seinfeld commercial their intent was for us to be amazed by how humorous and witty it was… they trumpeted it as a showstopper. While I found the ad enjoyable (I certainly thought it was more amusing than most people seemed to), it did not have the impact that Microsoft expected it to… which is why it got pulled so quickly.
They have lofty ambitions but are guilty of continually underestimating their audience.
I’m saying the promotion for Jerry before hand caused the add to go viral. I never saw any of those ads on television, but because everyone was talking about it I went to Microsoft’s web site to see them. Then proceeded to talk about it with others.
“Promotion” I would consider to be what is done/sold/talked about more by the company itself. “Hype” I would consider to be done more by others.
I consider being a viral ad not by its medium, but by how it spreads. Word of mouth, e-mails, news papers, etc. Spreading like a virus. I was thinking about an add placed during the Superbowl. It is going to be viral almost no matter what.
Viral marketing on the other hand seems more like what you are writing about. Trying to have some hook that you think people will talk about or spread before hand. Trying to market by different means from traditional media. The success (however you measure that…another topic) is not known till after it is out there whatever medium it may be.
Good stuff.
So is “viral” just “popular” then?
Your definition of something being viral based on how it spreads is confusing. How does something spread in a non-viral way, if “viral” includes newspapers, written communication, and talking?
Is a phone tree “viral”? Or is it just communication?
Also, what part of this “House Party” ad is viral? The ad, or ridiculing the ad?
Viral would be similar to spreading like a virus, message intended to be spread. Whether it is popular or not. Popular would be things that are well popular, appealing to general public or well liked.
I would say the House Party ad has become viral by ridiculing it.
“Your definition of something being viral based on how it spreads is confusing. How does something spread in a non-viral way, if “viral” includes newspapers, written communication, and talking?”
An ad can be communicated and distributed but doesn’t have to spread. If I see an ad and don’t tell someone else about it then it doesn’t spread, yet the message is still received by me.
“Is a phone tree “viral”? Or is it just communication?”
Yes seems like it would be. (answer to both questions)
I feel like this fits. It is from Wikipedia:
Among the first to write about viral marketing on the Internet was media critic Douglas Rushkoff in his 1994 book Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture. The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a “susceptible” user, that user will become “infected” (i.e., accept the idea) and will then go on to share the idea with others “infecting them,” in the viral analogy’s terms. As long as each infected user shares the idea with more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the basic reproductive rate is greater than one – the standard in epidemiology for qualifying something as an epidemic), the number of infected users will grow according to a logistic curve, whose initial segment appears exponential. Of course, the marketing campaign may be wildly successful even if the rate at which things are spread isn’t of epidemic proportions, if this user-to-user sharing is sustained by other forms of marketing communications, such as public relations or advertising.
“I would say the House Party ad has become viral by ridiculing it.”
I disagree completely. The ridicule is viral, the ad is a failure.
It is not a matter of opinion but of defenition.
“The ridicule is viral” the ridicule is about the ad which is making it viral by how it is spreading it. The success or “failure” of the ad would be determined by numerous possible criteria such as intent of the ad to begin with, by how much money was spent on the ad, by how much money was made from the ad, by how much mind share was gotten from the ad, etc.
It seems like you are writing about guerrilla marketing not about an ad becoming viral.