Eye on Microsoft
About this Blog:
This is Shane O'Neill's blog about Microsoft's corporate strategy and its various software and services — the good, the bad and the ugly.
Windows 7 Debut Commercial Wants to Make You Happy
The first Windows 7 TV ad features go-to cute girl Kylie in a silly but fun spot that highlights the new OS's glowing reviews.
The Windows 7 ad campaign opened its doors a crack yesterday with a teaser called "Good News" featuring Microsoft's secret weapon, 5-year-old cute kid Kylie. You'll remember young Kylie from last year's I'm a PC "Rookies" spots, where she warmed hearts e-mailing photos of her fish to her parents.
Well, Kylie got herself a promotion, and is now the first spokesperson for Windows 7. Way to go kid!
Microsoft's debut Windows 7 TV commercial.
Microsoft has told me that the Windows 7 ad campaign will be large in scale and will continue to ramp up as the Oct. 22 ship date gets closer. The company denied that the early release of Apple's Snow Leopard affected Windows 7 advertising plans, but the sooner Microsoft can divert attention from Snow Leopard the better.
It starts with Kylie.
The "Good News" spot is light as a feather with a focus more on Kylie's cuteness and the rave reviews of Windows 7 than the design and features of the new OS. Not that there's anything wrong with that. This is the general public we're talking about here; you have to take it slow. The intricacies of the revamped Windows 7 taskbar can wait. What's needed now is a cute and curious kid telling the audience that Windows 7 is awesome, it's coming soon and we should be happy about it.
Speaking of happy, the cheeseball '80s anthem "The Final Countdown" by Europe provides the soundtrack, giving the ad a burst of wacky energy. This song is impossible to take seriously, but admit it, it makes you smile (and possibly pump your fist in the air).
The music kicks in as Kylie slaps together a colorful slideshow of excerpts from glowing reviews of Windows 7 — "happy words" is what she calls them — over images of a unicorn, a cat, and other fuzzy creatures. It's hard not to notice that Kylie found these reviews on a fake search engine and not Bing. Way to blow a Bing moment, Microsoft!
In any case, this ad sounds bizarre on paper, but Kylie makes it work, especially when she adorably butchers the word "responsive."
"I'm a PC, and more happy is coming," says Kylie at the end of the ad over "Windows 7" and "10-22-09" titles. I hope Microsoft will move on from kid stuff, but this ad is a happy opener.
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