Windows Vista “I can do that” is a disgrace

Microsoft Australia has recently put together an advertising campaign for Windows Vista called “I can do that”. The premise of the campaign I assume is to demonstrate what you can do with Windows Vista, but I’m not too sure about the execution. For example, take a look at this commercial which a variation of has been playing on at least two popular Australian commercial radio stations.

[flv:vistaicandothat.flv 600 344]

I don’t know about you, but this is quite an annoying advert. At least one other Aussie share the same feeling. It’s downright amateurish and borderline cocky. What little of the end result we see is nothing to be proud of anyway. The kid who plays the director just makes me want to punch fluffy animals. The ad is not engaging, interesting or even informative. If it wasn’t for this, I wouldn’t dare show anyone else.

A related online campaign at one of the radio station’s websites is equally bad. It aims to show the difference between “before” and “after” processing by Windows Live Photo Gallery.

At a glance, it’s basic exposure correction. If you pay more attention, it’s actually also airbrushing the wrinkles on the people’s faces. Something Live Photo Gallery cannot do and obviously post-processed in Adobe Photoshop (check EXIF).

If this is in any way related to the $200 million advertising fund injected into Vista this year then that’s even more disappointing. Maybe try McCann Worldwide instead?

37 insightful thoughts

  1. At least they’re showing people using a product. It doesn’t teach anything to anyone and the acting is cheesy but at least it’s not swishing letters and smiley multicultural people accomplishing nothing.

    They need to be going for more education, less advertising.

  2. It is rather amateurish. In fact, it looks like the kids cut the advert together as well as their home movie. It does though,, like Dentaku says, actually show of product features. It’s a step in the right direction, but it is a pretty poor effort.

  3. I think they should be sued for misguiding people with that Photoshopped picture and saying it can be done with Windows Live Photography !
    pathetic.
    No wonder Mac bashes PC, it’s coz of these advertisements.

  4. It has the kind of objective the new marketing should have (in terms of educating the “regular folk”), but if this in any way related to the now total sum of $500 million, then I’m sorry, but they could have just hired me. ;P

    But I have a stonger belief (and hope) that is just another of those in-house “marketing campaigns” that have the budget of a few bucks and is supposed to remain local, because I highly doubt Ballmer would approve anything remotely close to this to compete with Apple’s “PC vs Mac” campaign.

  5. Don’t like the way the kid behaves with others. And I’m amused how you manage to catch MS’s ugly cover-ups such as the photoshopped Live Galleried image. Best for explaining the meaning of marketing to anyone.

  6. I just watched a 90-minute Barbie-doll snuff film whilst torturing a helpless elderly badger *just* to flush that shite advert out of my mind.

  7. Maybe it’s a deliberate attempt at making it look simple and amateurish. Producing a hollywood blockbuster like ad for a campaign with the motto “I can do that” wouldn’t come across right, either.

  8. MS doesn’t need these silly, boring ad, what they need is interesting, funny, brain-washing, even lying ad as some company produced.

  9. At least they could have made a better ending image – that one with the vista background and logo attached on it looks bad…

  10. Long – I can’t tell you how much I agree with what you are saying! You have echoed my thoughts about these stupid campaigns over the last few weeks.

    The campaigns are downright infuriating and borderline ‘false advertising’, as seen with the Live Photo Gallery ‘Russell Crowe’ ad.

    I tried to edit a family movie with this version of Movie Maker last year and the result was nothing but mediocre; this led to my stray from Windows and the purchase of two Apple Macs. I couldn’t be happier.

  11. What a joke. It’s hard not to get surprised at any of Microsoft’s new attempts at advertising. It just always is crud.

    After seeing this video, and the lame photo brightening, all I can say is this: What can I do on Windows Vista, that I can’t already do well on OS X Leopard?

    If Microsoft can answer the million dollar question, then I’d be shell-shocked. I can obviously edit videos with any other video-editing software (not free, but with much better results), and any photo-editing software at least has brightening features for free. This shows nothing special. People with happy faces don’t sell me, as a product that looked outstanding.

  12. This is worse then the Wow Starts Now trite.

    Walkie Talkies? I was totally thinking about Live Messenger, just like Zim mentioned.
    Windows Movie Maker? Until it has an actual timeline editor, there is better free software.
    And seriously, the brat kids insulting everyone? Is that what Windows does to you? Because I was thinking that attitude is what you’d want to say that your competitor is, NOT you.

    The $300 and $200 million are for CP+B and good advertisers, not this if I’m not mistaken; that lands in mid July. Lets hope its not this crap.

  13. Wow that is sad. You know what’s worse? They fact that the ‘Director Pack’ competition they have there doesn’t even work! Their SSL certificate is apparently “NOT MICROSOFT”, so it’s been revoked.
    Try it, try to log in with your live account.
    I put pictures on by blog: http://wider-angle.com/blog/

  14. I love the fact that Dell is part of lot’s of MS videos… only Dell computer here

    Otherwise, sad advertisement…

  15. Totally agree. Another one I saw recently was at the beginning of “The Happening” there was a commercial for “Windows Live Messenger” but they were doing so on a Mac… Where I believe Mac just has “Messenger”…

  16. > Yetr wrote:
    > Until it has an actual timeline editor, there is better free software.

    > It has an actual timeline editor:

    > http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/26/Photo_Story_3_And_Movie_ Maker_2_files/image005.jpg

    Yeah, I was going to say that too. Movie maker 2 has ALWAYS had a Timeline Editor, even in XP.
    Where it says STORYBOARD, just change it to TIMELINE.

    I still hope they make an updated version someday and integrate Photostory and DVD maker into it instead of using 3 separate apps.

  17. That is a crap ad. You’re not wrong.

    Microsoft can do that. ”That” referring to a crap advert.

  18. @Mike & Dentaku – Hard to know your talking to me with the Yetr typo, but since you raised the issue, I should clarify. Yes, Windows Movie Maker has a timeline. But it does not allow layering of audio or video files, making overlays and other effects that are necessary very hard to pull off. To me, this is not a timeline at all, or at least not the way I know and use.

  19. Does anyone know why windows vista sucksass…excuse the french, but I agree. I’ve had vista for two months and I absolutely hate it. I’m going back to xp and if they want me back they’ll have to fix all the problems Ive came across. Like one I hate the loading…it takes so long. Im so use to point and click and woot Im there. Two my dvd drive wont burn my digital photos, and check this i used photoshop and it wont let me uninstall it. Ive tried uninstalling alot of programs and it wont work it just tells me I need to close internet explorer. Then I go and look under task manager and its not running even if I stop the process which doesnt work at all. OK so i’m new at programming but I do know that this isnt suppose to happen. Ive even had my teacher look at it and he’s confused. That’s college professor now….. oh and btw YOU CANT PLAY ANY ONLINE GAMES. I mean the really good ones. I like WoW and other games are blocked completely. I talked to someone who claims to be smarter then me…he told me you gotta let it through your firewall right I did that and guess what error. Lets see someone else told me to try to make it compatable to vista doesnt let it through oh my favorite one I go and reinstall then run it in admin (whats up with that…i thought i was the admin to my computer aparently not) and it like acts like its patching the game and you click start and major error. Vista btw doesnt do well with programs that are suppose to protect you from hacking…. who thought of that. I could go on and on about all the problems Ive had with vista. I’m so about to buy a new laptop and btw this laptop is two months old. It’s going to have vista on it and I’m going to yank it off and put xp back on it. On and the nice thing is about that. You cant burn dvds or do alot of stuff bc the resource cd you get w/ the laptop I have doesn’t come with the drivers for xp anymore. That’s right everything has been updated and now stuff is made for vista only…./sob. Well I just want anyone to know that make sure when you get this product that your only going to use it for writing a paper, bc that’s the only thing its good for. And I say that bc my best friend is having the same trouble….go figure.
    PS. they should make a complaint page 😀

  20. @angel.
    i will be blunt.
    you are an idiot.
    who do you agree with anyway? the article is about the ads – NOT THE PRODUCT. i uninstalled photoshop CS2 just a while ago… and everybody else seems capable of uninstalling most programmes (yes, there is a few that will have problems, but its not the operating system! its the third party devs.
    HEY? GUESS WHAT? I WAS JUST PLAYING HALO 2 ONLINE AND BEFORE THAT TRIBES VENGEANCE. q

  21. continued…
    quite obviously you can play online games. good ones. and there are thousands (millions) of people playing WoW online on vista.
    if its your firewall thats the problem – you wont be able to play it on XP either (if you use the same one).
    actually – any current antivirus software works fine with vista. dont lie.
    vista is a great product and is a huge improvement over outdated XP.

    they have a feedback page if you want to bitch to them about it. btw.

  22. @nicko
    I got ur idiot…i didnt insult anyone on here so wtf u wanna insult me for. I gives a ratsass if u can use vista or not, I can have a effing opinion whenever i want. Vista btw doesnt work for everyone. Actually ive been playing all my games so far on xp as of yesturday and I havent had a problem IE…WoW. BTW ur the only person that’s said vista was a good product…..ur lucky its just me talking to u bc my bf wants to know where u stay. OH and I actualy said I agreed…Ive seen the dumbass commercials and honestly i dont really care…Ill complain to any and everyone whenever i please go talk to someone else who takes opinions lightly bc i dont. BTW my friend called u something rather ungodly bc she and plenty of other ppl are having problems just like me. NOT to mention I’m an admin over a few things and they don’t have time to fix our problems-like i dont have time to deal w/ hackers and such. Like I said i’ll stick with xp until its fixed jerkoff.

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