Will Microsoft’s $300 Million Ad Campaign To Improve Vista’s Image Change Anything?

Submitted by lalit on July 23, 2008 - 8:46am.

Microsoft started the first phase of its $300 million advertising campaign for improving and clearing up ‘misconceptions’ about Windows Vista. The ad campaign is in response to Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” marketing campaign. The first ad that appears on company’s website (photo above) says, “At one point, everyone thought the earth was flat.” The image links to a page informing how far Vista has come. On the page Microsoft posts:

When Windows Vista debuted in January 2007, we declared it the best operating system we had ever made. "Windows Vista is beautiful," The New York Times raved. It's humbling that millions of you agree.
But we know a few of you were disappointed by your early encounter. Printers didn't work. Games felt sluggish. You told us—loudly at times—that the latest Windows wasn't always living up to your high expectations for a Microsoft product.
Well, we've been taking notes and addressing issues.
So as we prepare to stop selling Windows XP on June 30, it felt like the right time to update you on our progress, highlighted by the recent release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1).
While we're at it, we'd like to clear up some confusion and lingering misunderstandings about Windows Vista—and our plans for its predecessor, Windows XP.

It is very clear that Microsoft is doing the ad campaign to improve Vista’s image and it admits that initial launch of Vista was disappointing for users (few). Even though Microsoft is trying to make it look like they believed it was the best OS when released in January 2007, the truth is many of its employees weren’t satisfied with Vista. In fact, Bill Gates responded to a question about what product he thought was not polished enough to be released, by saying, “Ask me when we launch our next OS, and I’ll be more inclined to give you a blunt answer.” It’s not just Microsoft’s own employees only; many of its hardware partners have openly said that Vista is causing them lot of trouble. Yesterday, SanDisk CEO said, “unfortunately, performance in the Vista environment falls short of what the market really needs”. The ad campaign that Microsoft has started is not to convince average computer user, as they will be forced to buy a Vista based computer since Microsoft has stopped selling Windows XP. The campaign is designed to pursue large businesses, that have already decided not go for Vista, to reconsider Vista again. Microsoft has a very tough road ahead because for businesses, Windows Vista is still a flat proposition.