This commercial is a bait and switch, and as is common with ads by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, they rely on subtle psychological ploys to effectively influence your thinking.

The ad grabs your attention by highlighting the various ways in which society has become addicted to constantly checking information that resides in mobile devices. Several of the scenes deliberately emphasize activities in which another party is left deprived by someone using a phone. The most striking image to me was a father playing see-saw with his daughter, but we also have a game of catch, a neglected wife showing off lingerie, a neglected girlfriend during dinner. The scenes, and their inherent problems, are readily accessible and, importantly, relatable to our every day experiences. Lots of girlfriends in the house are nodding.

So now it has seduced you into agreeing with its premise, and you kind of wonder how the commercial proposes to fix it. Cell phones are bad. And then, at the very end, they propose a solution! Yes! We have been waiting for it. The tagline: "It's time for our phones to save us from our phones. New Windows Phone 7. Designed to get you in, and out, and back to life." YES! Wait, or is it a solution?

If we go back to the original montage building up to the release, the solution, note that what is being highlighted is the TACT of using a phone in particular situations, NOT, as the end implies, some kind of difficult to navigate software that makes information too lengthy a process to access. Have you ever checked email during dinner with a girlfriend on an iPhone or Android? How long does it take to glance at the new messages? 5 seconds? 7 tops? Guess what, she still disapproves. Same with the bedroom situation. If you think about it, the commercial, the first time you see it, seduces you into agreeing with the premise not that the phone takes too long to use, but that it doesn't belong in a bedroom! That it shouldn't be whipped out during a game of catch!

In short, the commercial highlights a common problem that it fails to solve. It presents the solution in a grammar that almost solves the problem, but then if you think about it more deeply, utterly fails to solve that problem. Put another way, if Windows Phone 7 does solve the time access problem, the commercial utterly fails to provide any evidence that it succeeds in doing so, because it highlights something else.

By not really featuring the product in any substantive way, the ad agency is showing that it can't figure out how to differentiate the product.

What really strikes me, is just how simple Apple's iPhone ads really are. They can be summarized in one sentence:

"Look how freaking cool our phone is!"

This ad was entertaining, but as far as ads go, it's truly awful. My reaction was "yeah, I do check my phone too much. If I didn't have a business to run, my next phone would be a POS without any features."

The flying phone tiles, the "save us from our phones", etc. All lost in the much larger message of "PUT THE PHONE DOWN ASSHOLE". This would have been a great public service announcement for spending more time with your family.

The presentation creates a clear differentiation between Phone 7 and its most obvious competitor with the message "Phone 7 will not turn you in to one of those people." iPhone and Android marketing suggest that the purchase will allow the consumer to assert technical superiority. Microsoft's ad suggests that Phone 7 is the mature choice – Microsoft is on message. The purchase of phone 7 reflects the consumer's character.

The ad is targeted not so much at smartphone users but at smartphone adopters - the same market segment the iPhone capitalizes on. It more or less assumes that everyone who wants an iPhone already has one. More importantly, it sets expectations low (i.e. Phone 7 won't be fun or engaging), and allows Phone 7 to exceed customer expectations quickly during presale.

It's an ad for people who believe "It's a phone, not my life."

So basically it's just like all the other smartphone ads either with pretty graphics or depicting something only weakly related to the phone. At least with the Windows 7 ads they show some features.

Like this commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9fXYQjwR0w

So is Droid really made by space aliens or is Motorola fucking with me?

Maybe this type of marketing works with little kids and their t oys, but smart phones are expensive. Sure your commercial was funny, but I'm still not buying it unless online people tell me to.

A reader comment from the linked BetaNews page describes it well.

Microsoft's marketing people must have sat around a table and pondered what features they could possibly promote about Windows Phone 7.

They couldn't really promote its use for office work, as then people would realize that the phone can't copy-paste text, making it unsuitable for the task.

They can't promote apps, as it is dwarfed by Android and iPhone (where did those Angry Birds go?).

So the marketing people chose to promote the default front screen with its blue tiles as Windows Phone 7's best feature.

Running a negative campaign like this can be risky. You see people frustrated with their phones, you see the Windows Phone 7 logo, and you subconsciously combine the two.

You see someone throw their phone into a toilet. You see the Windows Phone 7 logo, and combine to two events together.

I don't envy the ad agency that took on this unenviable job. It's a bit like taking on the ad campaign to promote New Coke.

They're not frustrated, they're engrossed. So engrossed the phone falls into a toilet and he picks it right back out to keep typing. Did he watch the ad carefully? If there's an mis-association to be made, it's with addictive phone usage, not frustration. Not exactly the worst association you could make.

I find the ad dangerous for exactly the opposite reason: it's like MS is promoting a phone that you won't enjoy using too much, so you want to spend as little time on it as possible. This aligns fairly well with my experience with Office and Windows products.

> it's like MS is promoting a phone that you won't enjoy using too much, so you want to spend as little time on it as possible.

This is exactly what I was thinking. With these commercials, Microsoft isn't pandering to the "techie" crowd. They're trying to market their product to normal people. I think the simple fact that it's a cool, modern smartphone means that, for the tech crowd, it will essentially sell itself. The tech crowd doesn't need to be marketed to. They'll pick up anything that's new.

They did the same thing when marketing Windows 7 with the whole "my idea" campaign, and I think it will work with the phone too.

That's not really true though. I used the Windows 7 Phone -- I thought it was pretty good. I think the App market model in Win7 is far better than the app market model in Android. It can't promote number of apps but I use maybe 10 applications on my iPhone.

Integration with Xbox Live kicks the crap out of the iPhone and Android.

The user interface is pretty good and innovative. At least you can't accuse them of ripping Apple off.

Overall I think it's a pretty good phone offering. Personally I'm a happy iPhone user and I don't see myself switching anytime soon but I don't think spreading FUD is being intellectually honest.

>Integration with Xbox Live kicks the crap out of the iPhone and Android.

This makes it sound like it is competing more against the PSP than iPhone or Android. I have maybe 3 games on my iPhone/iPad combined (well more, but those are for my child) because I didn't get either of these devices to game on.

EDIT: So I take it someone disagrees that Windows 7 is differentiating themselves by being more a gaming platform and thus competing closer to a PSP type device (e.g. a device that is primarily for games) than a smart phone?

It's a clever commercial. I'm sure they'll get some "can you hear me now?" social echo chamber effect from it. I really hope people outgrow this compulsive phone fiddling disorder but I doubt WM7 is the solution. People aren't caught up in the minutia of the OS itself. They're mostly focusing on SMS & Facebook apps at this point. Maybe games too.

Agree, this line struck me as odd from the article "I'm a huge fan of Microsoft's marketing campaigns for Bing, Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7."

Really? I enjoyed this ad, very witty, and an idea I hadn't seen before, but still resonates. But come on, the other stuff was rubbish.

I see most TV ads with the sound off (I mute the TV during ad breaks).

Watching this one with the sound off completely reverses the intended effect. At least one person I've seen mention it on Twitter wasn't paying attention to the sound and thought that Windows Phone 7 making you fall down the stairs was the point of the ad.

Lots of people don't pay that much attention to adverts, and what they'll take away from this is: people are dicks with Windows Phone 7.

up until the end, I also thought "so good you won't be able to leave it" was the intended message.

It also recalled an old halo commercial on the lines of "I used to have a boyfriend, then halo came" (not sure if it only aired in my country or worldwide).

Frankly while I think the ad is fun, it does not seem to be convincing. But that's probably not the point, I guess the only goal was to have this become some sort of viral video. People only need to be exposed, not convinced.

This would be interesting if it meant that Microsoft was positioning Phone - As - Peripheral against Apple's Phone - As - Platform. But they aren't; look at their marketing material and they're triangulating and trying to have it both ways, getting you "in and out" when you want to be "in and out" but being "immersive" when that's what you want.

Telling: this ad doesn't really show the product.

Not showing the product is not an unheard of marketing technique. Nike is famous for this. There are also other examples such as Wonderbra and Kellog's. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/business/media/05adco.html...

If I had to guess, the WP7 ads deliberately minimize the product itself. The subtext here is that WP7 is not a robot that controls your life or a walled garden from which you cannot escape. Instead, it is a seamless extension of you.

I like the adverts. We'll have to see whether Microsoft takes the spirit of their advertising into their software.

All 3 of the above examples are (for the most part) commodity products being sold by existing market leaders.

Which is to say, everyone already knows about Nikes, Kellogs, and Wonderbra - raising the brand awareness to a level that transcends the commodity nature of the product (not just "a pair of runners") is the task at hand.

It may not be the best marketing position for a product playing catchup, where public awareness is very poor, and the whole "mobile OS" product is not at all commoditized at this point (though Android is trying, I suppose).

I guess part of the problem is there isn't just one clear product (as with iPhone). There are 10.

Compare the message here to this "Disconnect to Connect" ad from Thailand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ZrK2NryuQ

Nice find - thanks. Someone mentioned this kinda stuff being inspired rather than copied :)

I like to mess with my team at work every now and then. I use them as my own personal market research as they are from a host of different backgrounds (mech engineers, business administration, accountants, legal).

I showed them the advertisements and they all enjoyed it and thought it was clever and amusing. The consensus was even though they didn't find out anything about the phone, they all really want to find out. So for a study population of n=7, the advertisement 'worked'.

I actually like the first ad. But it's stolen from the "Really" skit from SNL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntd5wWigzxs

These commercials make me not want to use any phone; they don't spur me to buy a windows phone

Very clever ad, but not for this product. I don't see the cure to distraction as getting "in and out" quickly. The iPhone gets me in and out again much quicker than my previous phone which is the whole reason I check it so often.

Something tells me that the depiction of a windows 7 phone as a phone you don't use very much is probably accurate.

Funny ads although I think it's difficult to market Windows Phone 7 as being easier/faster than others. Visually the iPhone and Android appear more beautiful and equal if not more obvious to use at first glance, in my opinion. Instead, this new Windows Phone 7 marketing feels like they are saying "buy our phones because the other ones are too difficult to pull away from". If someone wasn't paying much attention to the wording in the ad it may have the opposite intended message which is "buy our phone and you'll forget about everything else".

Perhaps that's what they meant. That the windows phone will show you facebook messages but because of the minimalistic UI when you're done with that you'll just put it back in the pocket. As opposed to other phones where you would just keep staring at beautiful background and lickable icons.

Windows Phone 7: it's the phone you won't want to use.

Doesn't make me want to buy one any more, but I thought it was genuinely funny. The bar is low, but its certainly the best MS ad we've seen in a very long time.

Microsoft has a habit of being a few years late on any technology. Internet Explorer 9, and it's HTML 5 and CSS 3 support, should have been released 2 years ago to be competitive. Yet IE9, and I'm sure the Windows 7 Phone will get massive market share..

Except when they are not (surface, tablets, web integrated in the OS) and everybody says they are idiots :)

Wow I forgot about surface... what ever happened to that?

they are still selling them, not massive success it appears http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx

you are sure that WP7 will get a massive market share? What do you define as massive? Over what time frame?

Ballmer said 30 million units by the end of 2011..I wouldn't call that massive, but I doubt they'll even hit that.

30 million unites is massive market share to me. Maybe massive isn't the best word to use, since that almost indicates a majority, I'd say significant instead. Massive is relative. IE6 has massive market share... although it's like 15%, that's MASSIVE for what it should be...

It's interesting to try and position a smartphone towards people who hate obsessive smartphone users. I don't think that's the best positioning, though.

Microsoft has the power to keep crapware off of Windows phones and the Windows Phone UI seems better designed than Android, at least aesthetically. They're also on networks other than AT&T, which is their competitive advantage against Apple. So at least until a Verizon iPhone comes out Windows can sell WP7 on those merits. Upon getting that beachhead, they can beat Apple in third-party apps by not being dicks to their developers.

So they are going after the middle aged segment. I don't see how this ad would appeal to kids.

I see message of this ad as: "You clearly love to use your phone. We'll change that".

Interesting "pre-ad". They'll need to show off more of the features before the phones actually hit the stores.

It's a pretty sweet phone...

Allow me to make that a bit more clear. From testing on it for our app, it's been super fun to use, and pretty intuitive.

What the hell isn't these days. There are so many great phones out there now.

Engadget summed it up will in their coverage, they are nice phones, but nothing special. Still a bit behind the best from Apple and the Android camp.

It seems to be a decent version 1.

The question is going to be can they bridge the gaps between WP7 and iOS / Android faster than iOS / Android can open new gaps.

What I do like about it from a marketing stand point is that the UI isn't a bunch of icons, they've at least tried to do something different which I think is to be commended.

I find it rude to give your phone more attention than the person you're with, in social contexts. [As you might guess, I don't have a iPhone/smartphone/PDA]