Microsoft is busy advertising more products than just faux-love for the PC. Their new ad play is more like a straight up attack actually, in support of the brand’s virtualization solutions. Their largest competitor is VMware who is currently taking direct marketing and digital body blows from the giant.
Microsoft hired the Seattle-based advertising agency Wexley School For Girls to create a website titled VM Ware Costs Way Too Much. To get visitors to the site, Microsoft handed out fliers with $1 poker chips and the URL to recent attendees at a virtualization conference in Vegas. Subtle? Nope. Not even close.
By the way, Wexley is often a partner for Microsoft’s marketing initiatives including a recent one to talk about internet slicing (see pic above). This part is incredibly dorky, but it’s also an example of just how many shops Microsoft uses to push its many, many businesses.
Rand Morimoto, resident of Convergent Computing, told Channel Web that:
“I think Microsoft, in all of their recent marketing – including the Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld ads – is simply trying to get common people to “talk” about Microsoft.”
Well, it’s working.