Seen the latest commercial from Microsoft? The spot claims to have found an “artist” who wants to find the right computer for video editing. I don’t wanna spoil the ending for you, but she chooses a PC over a Mac. Microsoft wants us to all believe that, in the words of Irving Berlin, “Anything you (Mac) can do, I (Windows) can do better.” Only one teensy, tiny little problem. It’s all a lie. Read the rest of this entry »
The following is a true story. The names have been changed, not to protect the innocent, but because the guilty are litigeous weasels that would like nothing better than to sue me for telling the truth.
Some time ago, I was the Creative Director of an in-house agency for a software publisher. We’ll call them…um…”MacroGraphics.” I ran a group of creatives known internally as the Creative Services Group. As the company grew, internal politics reared it’s ugly head. As in many companies, when sales don’t meet projections or expectations, the first people to get blamed are the marketing guys. At MacroGraphics, this took the form of certain people in the sales department suggesting that the company hire an external agency. (I say this with absolute certainty, because one of the directors of sales was a golfing buddy of Stan Richards – head of the Richards Group – and had them come in to do a dog and pony show for the company…without giving me any advanced warning.) After the Richards Group pitched us, I suggested that if we were really interested in outside help for Creative Services, that we shop around for the best shop to work with. I brought in Seth Werner (the guy that came up with the California Raisins Claymation spots) who was running the Dallas office of Bloom. (Might as well start at the top, right?) While I was busy setting up other meetings, the CEO of MacroGraphics asked me to interview a guy they’d worked with before, who ran a very small Dallas agency. We’ll call him “Jonathan Ricotta.” Read the rest of this entry »
There’s an old saw in show business about the five stages of an actor’s career. It goes something like this:
Who is Jack Nicholson?
Get me Jack Nicholson!
Get me a Jack Nicholson type.
Get me a ‘young’ Jack Nicholson.
Who is Jack Nicholson? Marketing is a lot like that. I once worked for Micrografx as their creative director. Out of the blue a company out of Canada started running ads that offered a competitive product to our flagship release (Designer). Our software engineer’s response: “Who is Corel?”
Corel’s product launched and the trade press responded favorably. All of a sudden, it was no longer “Micrografx Designer and it’s competitors,” but Micrografx Designer and newcomer Corel Draw!.
After our design team failed to take Corel seriously, the press started saying “Micrografx Designer and Corel Draw!” and shortly “Corel Draw! and Micrografx Designer.”
As Micrografx Designer showed it’s age – and a new version was slow in coming, we heard “Corel Draw, and other applications like Micrografx Designer.” Read the rest of this entry »
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Marketing is a lot like that. I once worked for Micrografx as their creative director. Out of the blue a company out of Canada started running ads that offered a competitive product to our flagship release (Designer). Our software engineer’s response: “Who is Corel?”
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