Here’s Microsoft latest ad against Gmail, the Gmail Man:
I find it hard not to groan while watching it.
But its a fascinating competitive angle to take against Gmail.
It was a fascinating angle in 2005 while Gmail was still new and under all kinds of scrutiny, but today, who cares that your emails are automatically scanned, really? Even before Gmail, ISP’s already had the ability to read all your emails, but it has never really stopped anyone from using the email service of their choice.
I predict that this ad will get people to talk more about Gmail than the product it’s promoting (starting with myself).
This could also be considered deceptive advertising:
Google officials want it known, for the record, that there arent ads in Google Apps for Business. But admins can choose to enable the ads if they want- some find them useful, a Google spokesperson noted.
#1 by Bobby on July 29, 2011 - 8:32 am
Then there’s Office365MailMan, with Office 365 you get these “benefits”:
– Get yourself an official Office 2010 mailbox, because he won’t be able to deliver to just any old mailbox. Don’t forget to install continuous “fixes” for that mailbox, and upgrade it every few years.
– Oh, and that house that the mailbox is attached to? Well, that will need to be an official Microsoft-branded house as well, which of course you will need to constantly maintain and upgrade.
– Want to get your 365 mail when you’re on the road? No problem, just carry around a Microsoft-compatible mailbox.
#2 by Rusty Wright on July 29, 2011 - 10:25 am
Microsoft has copied a page from Apple’s book with their negative ads.
#3 by Todd on July 29, 2011 - 11:14 am
That’s awfully selective quoting of Gruber — he didn’t say he likes it, he said (immediately preceding your quote) “No other company than Microsoft would produce a video like this. So utterly Microsoftian in its awkwardness.”
He thought the competitive angle was interesting, but it seems clear that he wasn’t praising the ad – in fact he was criticizing it. Leaving out two of the three sentences of his entire statement on the matter (the ones which contradict your point) seems to be deliberately misleading.
#4 by Gabriel on July 29, 2011 - 1:13 pm
Remember bing “copied” googles search results. Microsoft is too low!!! There is nothing good to expect from this company 🙁
#5 by Ted Howard on July 29, 2011 - 4:35 pm
“who cares that your emails are automatically scanned, really?” seems like a simple paraphasing of GMailMan’s tagline of “so what?”
Silicon Valley may not care what others do wtih their data. Most of the world cares. Google has proven to the world that it will do with whatever it wants with others’ data. Microsoft states what they’ll do and what they won’t do.
#6 by Cedric on July 29, 2011 - 4:40 pm
Ted: Gmail’s success, and the fact that Microsoft feels threatened enough by it that it’s issuing a 3mn commercial bashing it, shows that most of the world doesn’t really care about the ads.
#7 by Daniel Zimmerman on July 29, 2011 - 11:49 pm
The idea that Gruber “likes” this ad is misleading (as mentioned above)… but so is the idea that this is a “Microsoft commercial”. The original article at http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsofts-latest-google-compete-weapon-the-gmail-man/10217 makes it quite clear that this is not a “commercial”, but rather an internal video for “revving up the sales troops”:
“The thing to remember about Microsoft MGX videos are theyre just a means of revving up the sales troops. kind of like what Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner did with his one-liners at Microsofts recent Worldwide Partner Conference. They are NOT meant to be a sales tool for customer calls.”
Moreover, the video isn’t officially available from Microsoft in any form. The article doesn’t even confirm that Microsoft is the original source of the video, though it does say this seems likely (and I agree). Say what you want about Microsoft – I certainly don’t have anything particularly nice to say about them – but even though they’ve run some truly hideous commercials in the past, the likelihood of them publicly running this absurdity as a commercial has got to be vanishingly small.
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#8 by Paul L on July 30, 2011 - 4:58 pm
Yeah , I care that google or anyone else wants to scan my emails for keywords. The fact that you are so “so what” about it is kinda creepy. PL
#9 by Cedric on July 30, 2011 - 7:48 pm
Paul L: Actually, given your email address, you don’t really have a problem with service providers scanning the content of your emails. You just prefer it to be Yahoo instead of Google.
#10 by David on July 31, 2011 - 9:25 am
I find Gmail Ads both useful and hilarious at various times, but I think most of the time I just don’t notice them if they are on the right side of the screen.
#11 by Rusty Wright on August 2, 2011 - 1:29 pm
David: I use Thunderbird and Firefox with AdBlock Plus and I don’t see them at all. I was talking to someone about gmail and they were saying how they didn’t want to use it because of all of the ads and I was going, “Huh? What ads?” I had to open it in IE to see what they were talking about. I also think they’re quite unobtrusive.
#12 by JuanGuapo on August 6, 2011 - 2:36 pm
The whole concept behind Gmail and advertising is sound. I have a Gmail account but I never use it because I find Gmail “ugly.” I use IMAP just fine with Yahoo and don’t have to change, peak, or tweak any settings for it to work properly with my client as must be done with Google’s Gmail.
#13 by Kumar Mettu on August 10, 2011 - 2:09 pm
This microsoft ad is 3AM Phone call ad of Tech (We know how well it worked for Hillary).