About time, wouldn’t you say?

Seriously, in the WIIFM category, what had Microsoft’s old ad agencies done for Microsoft, well, you know….lately?

Actually, since The Rolling Stones started Windows 95 up?

Nothing, is correct.

Seriously: they botched the surface launch, which featured a large number of ads starring a bunch of prancing twenty-somethings snapping the integrated kickstand on Surface tablets.

Interestingly, and incredulously, the ads NEVER told us why we should be interested enough in Surface, or even why we should buy it!

The ads failed to tell us anything about the product they were supposed to sell to us!

Did Microsoft learn?

No.

They then came out with the generally ho-hum Xbox One ad campaign.

How did that work out?

Let’s see: if you can discount the muddled messaging, and the let’s-shoot-ourselves-in-the-foot-and-then-put-bloody-foot-in-our-mouth mishaps from the Xbox team regarding Xbox One, the subsequent ad campaign did absolutely nothing to help the fortunes of that device.

5+ million Xbox One units sold, you tell me?

Well, no thanks to the ads, I tell ya.

The purchases so far have been as a result of the pent up demand for a new console, and there’s absolutely no reason why the decidedly superior Xbox One should be trounced in the marketplace by the inferior PlayStation 4, the $100 Kinect markup notwithstanding!

Here’s hoping that these new agencies come up with interesting, intelligent, and most importantly, extremely aspirational ad campaigns.

Here’s the Windows 95 ad, for those young'uns too young to remember.

Source: Microsoft chooses new agencies for creative and media services

Related: Microsoft picks new advertising agencies, takes a bite out of Razorfish

© 2002 – 2014, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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