Microsoft parks a “I’m a PC” promotion booth right in front of the Apple store in Birmingham, England. The move is an extension of the Redmond-based software giant’s $300 million advertising campaign aimed at cleaning up the image of its Windows Vista operating system, which has been tarnished at the hands of Apple’s long-running “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads.
It’s hilarious, John Hodgman’s PC character would totally park a booth in front of an Apple store to lure some customers. I can hear him whispering: “Come eat me, I’m a delicious pizza.” š
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple_getamac_pizzabox_20080818_480x272.mov
I noticed that one of the posters on the booth says, “I’M A PC AND I CHEAT DEATH”. That’s a great laugh line: Yes, one must surely be oblivious in the face of danger, to trust one’s personal identity, password, and banking information, or one’s corporate data, or one’s government secrets, to a Windows PC.
This could simply be yet another example in the long line of unintended Microsoft advertising ironies. However, I’ve long suspected that another force is at work. Microsoft hires advertising and marketing companies, and these companies are chock full of long time Mac enthusiasts. Those ironies may not be unintentional at all, but may be slipped past Microsoft review committees and corporate executives, who probably have no sense of irony, and thus no ability to detect the practical jokes. It’s like the marketing people are slapping post-it notes on the backs of the Microsoft executives which say, “poke me”.