Although I’m sure a sequel to the inspiring documentary about human flight keyed to Madonna’s “Ray of Light” otherwise known as the Windows XP commercial “Soar” have crossed their minds at least once, Microsoft seems to be taking a much more product-oriented approach comes time to promote Windows 7.
A number of conceptual TV commercial spots by director Marty Martin (awesome name) produced for Microsoft with a tight budget, short 3 days deadline and a Canon 5D Mark II SLR gives some clues to what the up and coming mainstream worldwide launch campaign for Windows 7 might focus on and look like.
Bearing in mind these are just three out of the five videos produced in total, here they are for your viewing pleasure.
Even though two of the spots are quite strange to say the least, from watching these spots one could assume for the mainstream Windows 7 campaign there will be a heavy focus on communicating the actual features of the product. For example, all three videos uploaded from the series of five produced utilize the final scene of the spot to illustrate Windows 7 in use, putting into context what the rest of the ad is about.
If the above assumption is correct, then the Windows 7 campaign would address at least one criticism of Windows Vista’s “Wow starts now” campaign where the product was almost completely ignored except for the iconic but non-sequitor Flip 3D reference.
The (first) college spot is definitely my favorite. Might be the soundtrack.
51 Comments
surilamin
I like these ads much better and by far the first one is the best…
Yert
Commercials for the launch of a new version of Windows have traditionally had nothing to do with Windows. Hopefully this will change, or we’ll see more people flying around in the air with waves of light around them as others jump around on trampolines with obviously fake smiles.
dovella
Amazing
mack
I must say these are first ads from microsoft that I like. They look clean and soft and are just what win7 is about.
HappyAndyK
Liked the Aero Shake one. Nice concept!
someone
WOW! Very impressed. I definitely like the approach to advertising this go around. Hopefully it keeps up and gets even more creative.
Manan
Weird
Would’ve made more sense if there were a lot of players on the field (to begin with) and then the coach selects, shakes one & everyone else vanishes.
Sven
Demonstrating Windows Live Movie Maker, which isn’t even in Windows 7 and works just as well on XP and Vista… why is that a Windows 7 ad?
Matthew
I personally liked the 3rd one best, and then the 2nd one was my next favorite. All of the ads almost felt … calming, which is interesting. But I liked it!
EnricoG
Nice!
The Aero Shake one is great!
Fred
@Sven: The new movie maker doesn’t work on XP anymore. Granted, it still does on Vista.
I liked them, they’re eyecatching and not as boring as those “here is how this product works *pushes up glasses*” ads, while still showing off some features.
Ali
I think these ads would work great on the TV. They’re clearly not any good as virals, but I’m pretty sure they’d gently grab my attention if I were ignoring the commercials as I usually do.
nyp
Those screenshots on those computers on ad 2 and 3 look fake, they don’t have those fade effects. (Yes, I’m that picky) Looks like they used green screen or running a PowerPoint slide show in there.
Besides that, in the third ad, why is the cursor using the classic one?? I thought the Aero cursor is a little shorter.
Ignoring those flaws, I can say this is much more better than Vista’s campaign though. At least they demonstrate /something/ other than keep saying “Wow!” here and there.
Denton
Is the girl in the last video using a Nokia netbook
?
Matt Sharpe
I agree with nyp
martani_net
those are great
parabel
“cut with FCP 7 as well as After Effects”
^^
Imran Hussain
Ad 1: Windows Live Movie Maker works on Vista and XP too. Why use that to promote Windows 7?
Ad 2 and 3: Finally ads that shows off OS features. Should attract more people to try out Windows 7 and see what they are about. Love them.
Do people now realize why Vista + Ads were a fail.
Mictateur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Movie_Maker
WLMM is not compatible with XP.
And they’re obviously trying to “sell” Windows Live Essentials with Win7. ;o)
Claudio
Great ads…at least they show what 7 can do… I think that the first ad was not good because Windows Movie Maker is not a Windows 7 application…my fave is the one of the girl in the park..
eze
Really really bad. It make look Win7 stupid.
AW
That 3rd one is hilarious.
“Hey guys, you can change your wallpaper in Windows 7! Fawkin’ awesome, right?” — Microsoft.
xaml
These spots focus on everything “College”, from sport to a sense of freedom, as the categorisation suggests. That’s three out of five.
bernard
Aero Shake is definitely the best one. Weakest is the 3rd one, can’t wait to see the other two!
Shitty7
kinda feel sorry for the unsuspecting public .. getting advertised this shitty vista OS in disguise with a slightly touched up shitty Aero UI ontop .. With its crap features that are easy to get on XP.. and where you don’t have to use an absolute dog turd of an Explorer.. and still get better shell extensions.. let alone the rest of noob shite like search etc.. I pitty the fools.. still I suppose MS is hoping to the notebook market is the best way of moving this shite pile of an update called Win7… its not like you’ll find many notebooks with the option for XP or no OS…would better value than giving money to MS for the shitty job they did on Win7.
Shitty7
“Really really bad. It make look Win7 stupid.”
lol … its purposely built for and aimed at the stupid (I mean that’s how MS treat and see all their customers, just makes it easier to build and design noob shit like so many of their products and features demonstrate.. and best of all get away with it) didn’t ya know
Shitty7
“slightly touched up shitty Aero UI ontop ”
I say slightly them losers at MS couldn’t be bothered to fix up much of shitty aero themes various issues.. >10min job.. let alone much of anything else.. nah fuck that, lets just ignore feedback. Anyway roll on Winshite8.
yuri
socking great!
dante01
very nice videos, great job!
Fred
Hi Koogle! Why do you keep changing your name?
Brent Vermilyea
I think these are way too abstract for mainstream, conventional advertising. Straight to the point works.
Sterling
The second ad (college football/Aero shake) ad is the best. Strange thing though that the other windows hide behind the shaken window, rather than minimize.
The third ad was okay. I didn’t like the soundtrack of the first ad.
theiden
nice, simple and it works. Like WIndows 7.
Leon.D
Well I’m sticking with XP, it has less annoying issues with it and everything in it and for it works better… windows 7 looks and is broken not better! Where are the real improvements to anything? it just seems to get worse! Until something better comes along I won’t be wasting money on it. Had enough trouble dealing with Vista and the stupid changes in that, this is just the same thing. They haven’t fixed or improved anything that they broke in vista.
“its purposely built for and aimed at the stupid (I mean that’s how MS treat and see all their customers, just makes it easier to build and design noob shit like so many of their products and features demonstrate.. and best of all get away with it) didn’t ya know”
Stephen
Leon.D – nobody cares, if you want to stick with antiquated software, do it..
- back on topic, vids not working for some reason?
Shi7e
Oh its you Stephen the resident UX morron!.. XP an antique now? 8+years old OS that is still overall much better supported and continues to take the piss out of clueless vis7a noobtards who buy up the bullshit and are too stupid to know why….makes me laugh, calling XP an antique and yet it still hasn’t been superseeded by anything better at all … Win7- that stinking pile of broken noobshit better than using XP?.. lol …only if you’re a noob!
You meet that requirement for sure though
“- back on topic, vids not working for some reason?”
who cares it was just your average advertising rubbish.. though I wonder if they used any shitty MS software!? and was it even done on a b0rked OS (vis7a)
sly
Just as lame as “the wow is now”. Windows 7 is just an upgrade from vista its not a completely recoded OS. In my opinion your a retarded for even thinking about buying windows 7. I personally think windows 7 should be a free upgrade for vista users.
Shi7e
“windows 7 should be a free upgrade for vista users.”
yes it should..call it Vista sp3 lol.. punishment for bringing out what is in essence still a shit update on the shittyVista OS that took speed & workflow backwards and made security & protection look like some sort joke (ya it didn’t go forwards in anything (unless you’re a clueless noob ofc))…and when you look at what they’ve done for Win7.. sweet fuck all of significance really.. they’ve just tried to hide it with more weak noobshit and crap changes only a noob couldn’t see the flaws in and still the total lack of improvement.
And I’m still wondering what they’ve done with feedback and suggestions they’ve had on all the Vista & 7 retardation, or do they just filter out all useful suggestions and keep the noob shit feedback from beta noobs that they agree with and meant less work? Because really the things they have done aren’t even better than external efforts and addons you could download on XP for free, takes the piss out of MS and there own shitty noob efforts really.. well if they hadn’t broken things with their own stupid changes, crap design and total lack of real feature and customization improvements.
Think I’ll be looking for a Linux notebook later this year… then strip it off and put vastly better and customized XPsp3 (+better looking visual style that doesn’t look like some aero shite and where the Explorer window isn’t some retarded looking pile of useless junk) along with rest the good stuff that ain’t broken looking shit on Shity7… or have MS forced all suppliers and manufactures into bundling defaulty Winshite 7?
Micro$uck must really be counting on the clueless to support this overall lame OS update. sigh …$$$ for added noob bait
ps http://neowinsucks.com -lol
nice- always thought Neowin was the biggest MS noobtard hangout.
Sibahi
I know I shouldn’t feed the troll but …
if you think the XP default theme looks better than Aero you need your taste cells checked ..
Shi7e
“if you think the XP default theme looks better than Aero you need your taste cells checked ..”
stop using the default theme! and even better stop thinking everyone else is a noob like you!!! also comparing defaulty new shit to something that was done 8years ago.. XP lives on now for the customization and everything else about it and for it that is still better than new MS retarded junk they been putting out since vista! … and I can best describe my own xp theme as royale noir only way better with none of the shoddy gfx or style elements found in that noir theme. I guess even then MS designers were lazy as f#ck, and they just got worse and decided to fuckup the rest of windows UI and window layouts with more of their noobshit design.
And at least they polished up the visual styles they did ship the with XP better.. which is more than I could about shitty vista, and still years later Win7.
And If MS weren’t complete retards they wouldn’t still stick to hardcoding they’re own shitty noob settings and design elements. And continue on making it more difficult for those who have better taste and want to make their ui/ux look less crap.. at least while their are still apps that actually adhere to the OS visual style.. I guess MS fucked up so baddly its now a common thing for developers to dump the shitty vis7a aero desktop ui and just build there own gui. Oh hangon no no they did a wonderful job on that Win7 noob theming shite! I’ll just change my desktop wallpaper and some colors, much better Whiiiiieeee -frckin noobs.
Jack
Ok, I’ll be the first to say: the emperor has no clothes.
These ads are rubbish!
If Aero shake is the best material the marketing muppets can find to work with… then Windows really is in trouble. Aero Shake is such a NON-FEATURE. In fact all the of things in these ads are non-features. There is no substance… its just airy fairy rubbish.
It’s sad but Microsoft are no where near as good as Apple on marketing. Not even one tenth. It’s like the MS marketing people are not involved until the very end when they find out about some trivial features. With Apple its like the marketing men are there during whole development and really understand the features and can explain them… which is a good sign the OSX has some compelling, distinct, valuable functionality.
Or maybe i’ve just been brainwashed by Apples marketing
Yes Apple is a lifestyle product but their advertising is still feature & value based… this lifestyle crap will get MS nowhere.
Bill
WTF? I hope their campaign for business users makes better sense. At least there was no Bill and Jerry…
Chris
Don’t know if it is just me but the videos are now set to private and they are password protected. Don’t know if this is because the videos became too popular too fast!
Jose Farrugia
You can view the rest of the adverts or commercials over here – http://www.mangochico.com/windows-7-advertising
Avatar X
At first i thought that not supporting Windows Live Movie Maker in XP was just a whim. but then i forced it to run in XP. It is not pretty at all and it is no wonder why they decided not to support it.
The reason is because its needs a lot of dependencies that are not included in XP at all and to get them you need to have every single Windows Live Program from Windows Live Essentials. then you need to force the install and have Photo Gallery and Messenger running so you can actually have WLMM working without crashing and it will still look weird, consume lots of ram and lots of CPU.
= Not worth it having it in XP running. you are better off with the tweaked Movie Maker 2.1 Portable http://devrexster.googlepages.com/mmk if you are in XP
Explorer
Shi7e, if you can PM me ’some1anywhere’ on the gmail domain, I should be able to help you somewhat with Windows Explorer issues.
Matias
This is a robbery!!!! Pay for What?? For a non probable correction of VISTA????
Shi7e
“I should be able to help you somewhat with Windows Explorer issues.”
And I don’t think there is anything you could suggest to me that I haven’t already seen, tested or use anyway..
Why not just say what it is you could help with here? And I don’t use vis7a or its Explorer.. so that’s a whole lot of issues I don’t have annoying me.
Lits
All the videos have gone away. Marty does not want we see.
ReaderX
I agree these ads are empty calories. The visuals are soft and appealing. The content is pointless… as if changing your desktop wallpaper were amazing, adding a weather widget were anything new, or thinking people want to shake their laptops to hide windows. It’s cute girls in everyday slacker gear doing much of nothing with Windows.
I think Microsoft should have two campaigns. One like this fuzzy bullplop for the people who buy whatever they’re told and another campaign with aggressive feature comparisons aimed at thinking adults.
r4 revolution
Nice videos. Where did they show these advertisements. I never really did saw them on television.
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