Microsoft Wishes You Happy Porn Browsing in New Vomit-Filled Video, Then Retracts Ad
Under waves of ever-increasing competition from Mozilla, Safari, and Google, Microsoft has released a series of edgy, PSA-style online videos to promote Internet Explorer 8.
Featuring one-time Lois and Clark actor Dean Cain, the ads are uncharacteristically hip and discuss such real-world Internet problems as the fear of missing something (a.k.a. insomnia by social media) and the fear of your S.O. finding your porn cache. However, at least one of the videos was just too cool for Microsoft. After becoming strangely popular and talked-about online, the video was renounced by the software mega-company and pulled from the promotional website. Somewhere tonight, a creative director weeps.
A Microsoft rep wrote in an email to CNET, "We created the... video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing feature of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humor that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaign. While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it."
The spot itself features a young lady spewing copious amounts of what used to be breakfast on a young man. She'd borrowed his laptop and evidently stumbled upon some hideous new Rule 34 form of online entertainment. The ad serves to highlight IE8's sneaky no-history InPrivate browsing feature.
The ads are, as a group, delightfully off-brand. They're too cool for Microsoft, which has generally dwelt somewhere between stodgy and cutesy in terms of marketing.
Better still, they show that Microsoft just might be listening to what users really need: Web Slices to get quick views of personally important sites without wasting unnecessary time browsing between full-on tabs; sharing accelerators for sending along lolcats or other media with a single right-click; and yes, a way to keep the missus from finding out about your love affair with Suicide Girls.
The features are nifty in themselves. We'd totally use them if we weren't already committed to Chrome and Firefox.
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I fail to see what was delightful - just disgusting. And the "creative type" who came up with this - brainless.
:-(
As a professional web developer, I just thought I ought to say that IE8 makes me want to puke, too. At least MS understands their product.
What a singularly disgusting ad! Really, the creative team that came up with this needs to go back to basics. Make them walk the streets with sandwich boards for a few months - that ought to give them some perspective on what the real world is like.
Totally could have done without the multiple shots of actual vomit.
MS continues to show how far away its finger is from the pulse.
It's a pretty good ad. If you don't like it, it's probably because you're not the target audience.
However, I'm not sure that the intended target audience (broad-minded, internet-culture-aware individuals) are going to switch away from their open-source, standards-based browsers to use IE simply on the strength of an ad. Bizarrely, the ad is targeted at an audience that is very hard to persuade via advertising.
You've got to be joking?
It's this kind of advert that makes me continue to believe that Microsoft is sabotaging itself and simply wants everyone to covert to Firefox, Safari and Chrome.
I found the add to be quite funny, although i'm entering this text in Firefox...
Such a bad taste ad. Not even funny,not clever,not witty. Just as microsoft are supposed to be.
No wonder they retracted it. Everyone offers private browsing nowadays - so they might as well have made a commercial where they say: "don't use our old IEs anymore, cause everyone else knows how to hide your porn-sites from history anyways"
Stupid concept to make a commercial for a feature that everyone else has anyways.
I'm not sure why Microsoft would want to associate gut-wrenching vomiting with their brand. Such an ad makes you physically want to throw up. Therefore, when I link Microsoft to this ad, I link Microsoft to me wanting to throw up. Not sure what the strategy or insights that led the creatives to this ad.
-Ethan
Yep - the main message of this ad? "IE 8 makes me vomit." Even though that's not REALLY what they were saying, that was what viewers were left with, I think.
Terrible, terrible idea for an ad. Terrible.
Not funny. And years after the other browsers got it.
it's totally disgusting. period.
Would that get my attention? Yes.
Would that entertain me? Yes (and did.)
Would it make me switch to I.E? No way.
I'm actually a bit saddened that they pulled it. I like edgy commercials. Not enough, lately.
wow....I agree...the vomit shots were so gross! While this series of ads is somewhat clever, I do agree that it just doesn't fit with Microsoft's persona -- don't they know that the only people that use IE are businessmen and the 'older crowd'? The young 'hip' crowd discovered Firefox and Chrome long ago, and can never be won back.
Wow you people are retarded, its good to see a company with a sense of humor !!