Comment by Alleyfield | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Alleyfield | Hacker News Reader

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I do understand that but please, analyze it more carefully.

You're marketing a version of your product which is compared against a carton of milk. I tend to think that when you're marketing a browser you should regard them as valuable cars, as you wan't to build up some goodwill among your customer base.

If your customers regard your browser as a carton of milk which basically is just a carton of milk - a product that's fastly consumed - then what makes them to connect to your product (in this case, an internet browser)? Will it build goodwill?

What if mercedes benz announced that their old products are just tin cans - and that you probably wouldn't want to keep old tin cans laying around - what kind of a message would the company be conveying to the customer in view of their product?

If microsoft itself views the explorer product family as cartons of milk and also conveys a clear message of it through its own marketing - then, in my opinion, as brutal as it sounds, it's time to rebrand the product. Even when you're publishing a new version of the product, essentially, you'll just be publishing a prettier carton of milk.

the products arent supposed to be compared in the slightest, they just want people to realise that when it comes to browsers old = bad, new = good.

that is most certainly true for milk, its not so clear with cars (vintage cars are popular, if cars are looked after they can last a long long time)

I do understand that the point they're trying to make and I am not arguing for that. Nor am I arguing that vintage cars might be popular - you're going into too much detail (the point was that in our modern world, in regard of products produced, "newer" usually translates to "better").

But what I do believe, is that they're asking the customer to think the analogy behind the idea of not drinking 9 year old milk and connecting that to the idea of not using a 9 yo browser (old = bad, new = good as you said). Wouldn't you agree that for that analogy to work with the message they're trying to convey, you need to make a connection of putting the IE Browser into the milk's place in that analogy?

I mean look at that page: half of your screen is filled with a carton of milk - the other half tells about why you wouldn't use a browser (IE 6) which also is 9 yo. So wouldn't you agree that somewhere in there lies the notion of IE 6 being as good as 9 yo milk?

Probably?

And remember that most people are bad at remembering numbers. Names, on the other hand, are something that most people do remember better.

Therefore, imho, I don't understand what the marketing department was thinking, as in my opinion, the advert connects your thoughts about 9yo milk to an internet browser (of which we already have created our own views) - and in the long run people will most probably only remember 9 yo milk & Internet Explorer (and bear in mind that this advert comes from microsoft).

Therefore, the question of what was the marketing department thinking rose into my mind. I believe that the point of viewing and "comparing" IE & a carton of milk screams for some serious rebranding for the product called "internet explorer" - because nerds can really relate to that message or what?

And in the end of the day, they are the people who power the revolutions of switching browsers.

tl;dr I don't believe that the advert works in advantage for Microsoft & IE

I'm going to wade in here: the point the parent was making is that the analogy is bad on purpose. It's not supposed to make sense. They don't want to say IE6 is like 9yo milk except in that old-age means things have deteriorated. They want it to appear that IE6 was an excellent browser but that it has somehow decayed.

Clearly they couldn't think of anything really good to say about IE8 except that it's not [that] old.

Perhaps they should have compared IE6 to MS Windows ME or something else from that time that was really really bad.

Maybe "you've ditched Billy Bass, you've moved on from The Sims, you're not wearing those capri pants anymore; no more monotonic ring-tones, ugg boots are out; you've served your time as Apprentice and made and lost your million on the 'net; you're not going to stand for no more snakes on no more planes; so, isn't it time you upgraded your broswer for what's left of this new millenium? - IE8 get it in FTW".

Bit formulaic, but that's my pitch - did I win?

Your post & pitch is almost exactly the thing I was after for!

I couldn't have come up with a pitch like yours, which imo would be so much better for Microsoft than the current "carton of milk" -analogy.

Thanks consider me for your next international advertising promo!

;0)

Dear Alleyfield,

By any chance, do you not work in marketing? Are you part of the target audience (that is, do you still run IE6)? No? Are you, rather, a fairly sophisticated user, maybe dare I say, a geek? Yes?

Then don't judge the effectiveness of that particular marketing, it doesn't make sense to you, and that's perfectly acceptable.

Dear Alain,

no - I don't work in marketing, and you're probably right about the fact that I am not even near the target audience.

But does it really matter?

I believe you can relate to the fact that the more further you're from the target audience the more objectively you can slice & dice the advert. Of course, I might be too far away from the target audience so my views might be biased in that sense.

I don't pass judgement. I started writing in the basis that I wanted to share my own perception of the matter and hear what you guys have to say against it.

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