I’m A PC, You’re a PC, Everyone’s A PC!

Well Microsoft has done it; right when I was ready to start criticizing their new marketing efforts, they completely turn it around with the new I’m a PC campaign for their Windows operating system. This campaign immediately follows the bewildering Microsoft corporate ads staring Jerry Seinfeld paling around with Bill Gates (proving Larry David was the real genius behind Seinfeld) and their poorly thought out ads for the Mohave, uh I mean Vista operating system (effectively reminding everyone that people think Vista sucks rather than otherwise).

I must admit the I’m a Mac campaign Apple has been running over the past couple years has been one of the more effective consumer product campaigns. This campaign contributed heavily to Apple’s rapid gain in market share against their Microsoft Windows operating PC competitors both in the US and Worldwide. The campaign painted PC as difficult, inferior and just not cool or with it, while at the same time portraying Mac as cool, calm and collective personality who is with it. The stereotypes were dead on and of course everyone wanted to be the Mac guy and not the nerdy PC guy. All the wile Microsoft sat back and absorbed the blows while Apple kept the campaign rolling.

So when it was announced several months ago that Microsoft hired hot Miami ad shop Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I was very interested to see how the firm that put some life into Burger King and the edge back in Volkswagen would handle the bland brand Microsoft’s Windows operating system had become. The solution, directly address the PC stereotype and then rebuild the Windows brand by clearly and compellingly demonstrating that PC is in fact the computer of and for everyone and force Mac back into the niche market box it lived in through most of the 90’s and early 2000’s.

This new approach works for one simple reason, it speaks the truth. Although I’m personally caught in between both brands by sitting here typing away on my MacBook that’s running a Windows XP operating system (yes, you can do that now), the truth is the vast majority of computer users are still using PC’s running Windows at home and at work. These are not all geeky computer guys, although those are the guys that usually fix them (see my blog on Geek Squad), these are people of all ages, sexes, interests, professions, political opinions, levels of creativity, styles of facial hair, celebrity status and apparently even those who express that creativity by “challenging” the law.

The PC and therefore the Windows operating system by Microsoft is truly the brand of everyone and this campaign absolutely nails that position. The position is clear and the execution is outstanding, not only just with the new series of TV spots, but with the matching internet ad campaign and the new windows.com website where PC users can upload pictures of themselves as a chance for everyone to tell the world that “I’m a PC”.

Jake Crocker is a Partner and Brand Marketing Director at Martin Branding Worldwide, Inc.