Of late, Microsoft has seemingly changed its marketing stance, starting from Windows 8 and Surface whose promo videos were highly appreciated by both critics and the consumers. Climbing another step in the same direction, Microsoft has now launched a new campaign named as ‘The Browser You Loved to Hate’ targeted at users who waste no opportunity in slamming Internet Explorer as the worst browser of the decade.
In a new promo video, Microsoft reveals a day in the life of an IE hater whose only job, apart from drinking coffee, is to comment/post/tweet about how ‘IE sucks!!’. During the hate activity, this particular user learns about the various milestones and interesting features of Internet Explorer 10 apart from the increasing user share and this irks him even more, prompting him to post hate comments with increased vigour. However, after he learns about Internet Explorer introducing a new Karaoke web standard, he recollects about a particular Karaoke Grand-Master award he had won back in 2008. This brings him a smile and now he hates IE a bit less.
“Comebacks come in many shapes and sizes” – Internet Explorer Team
This particular portrayal is unique, true and fresh from the other ads which usually simply boast about the product and how ‘it rocks’. The brains behind this initiative not just deserve applause but also need to work on other upcoming marketing projects for Microsoft.
The Browser You Loved to Hate campaign credits various independent sources highlighting about how good Internet Explorer 10 is, both on the browser and the PC. It also hosts resources for users to learn more about the same.
This really caught our interest. Good one, Microsoft!
This only shows that Microsoft does listen to the public, and really tries their best to suit the public’s needs. They started crappy, and now they rock!
@facebook-570095487:disqus Hmm. One doesn’t often find the word “Microsoft” and the phrase “they rock” colliding in the same sentence……and rightly so, most of the time, in my experienced opinion.Microsoft has definitely had its moments, over time. I’ll grant it that. And so, then, this is simply one more of them. Trust me, though, the reasons to be disappointed in Microsoft are both still visible in the rear view mirror, and may be faintly seen up ahead.Microsoft never disappoints in its ability to disappoint.That said, I think it’s with a flawed understanding of history for anyone to suggest that Microsoft “started crappy.” It did not. Certain things it did were crappy. Its browser, Internet Explorer, started crappy… and late, too. But it’s simply incorrect to state that Microsoft started crappy……or, conversely, that “they rock.” Microsoft doesn’t do that, either.I also think it’s giving Microsoft way too much credit to suggest that it listens to the public. It does not. Never has. Never will.What Microsoft responds to is the ebb and flow of the market. The success of Android — not so much iPhones/iPads, but those too; but mostly Android — took Microsoft by surprise……and so it created a touch-screen- and movile-device-centric new Windows version which even non-touch-screen and non-mobile devices must both tolerate and use.No amount of screaming, on the part of the public, for Microsoft to do such a thing would ever — trust me, EVER — have resulted in Windows 8 as we now see and know it. It was, trust me, the success of Android (atop the earlier success of iPhone/iPad) that shook Microsoft into action. The market, then, and not the din of public outcry, moved Microsoft to its current actions.The company remains, however, the intransigent, arrogant, impervious-to-public-sentiment behemoth that it has always been; and will always be. Do not delude yourself.And please bear in mind that this opinion comes from someone who’s long preferred Microsoft over pretty much everything else out there. In my now nearly 40 years of IT and high-tech management consulting, I’ve used and supported pretty much everything out there; and have working Windows, Mac and Linux machines on my desk and credenza; a Windows 8 Dell 17R Special Edition notebook, and a high-end Android smartphone in the leather pouch on my belt. So, I’m not a Microsoft hater; but I’ve been around long enough to have seen all of Microsoft’s life phases and even dirty tricks. I remember, in fact, many times chatting with a young, not-yet-filthy-rich Bill Gates on such as the floor of the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco in the ’70s. Even then, I could see, from him, what Microsoft’s corporate “personality” and culture would one day be; and time has shown that I was dead-on correct about that prediction.Microsoft cannot be trusted (except, of course, to do what I’m about to say in the next sentence). It will act, always, in its own corporate best interests, and will always innovate with reckless disregard for the actual needs and desires of its users as expressed by same……that is, until it starts losing users to the likes of iOS and/or Android; and then, suddenly, it will lift its head from the single-minded contemplation of its own navel and actually bother to see what is the matter; and then act accordingly, yet still, do not be fooled, in its own — and no others’ — best interests. Money, remember, talks.Perhaps you’ve simply not been alive long enough, and have seen enough, to realize all this… hence your glowing . Being an oldster, then, I guess, has its advantages, eh?_____________________________Gregg L. DesElmsNapa, California USAgregg at greggdeselms dot com