Why Microsoft's "Scroogled" Campaign Is Childish

Did anyone really need convincing that the Scroogled campaign was childish? This campaign is so bad, it's going to be used in case studies for years to come.

We're literally looking at history in the making with this campaign. If MSFT declines in the coming years, this will be regarded as a signal of the beginning of the end. If they improve, this will be regarded as a "darkest before the dawn" moment. There are plenty of varying degrees of "bad," but "historical-record bad" is what Scroogled is.

Yes, the campaign is childish, but so are the article's misrepresentations. For example:

(1) Google Docs - not Drive - does not have "nearly the same capabilities" as Office by any reasonable definition. FFS, they don't even seem to have proper support for custom paragraph styles, widow/orphan control, etc. There are certainly ways in which Google Docs improves over Office, especially wrt collaborative editing, but there are also massive gaps that make it almost unusable for anything medium-size or larger.

(2) Microsoft's characterization of Chromebooks as "useless without the internet" is not entirely wrong. Constant internet connectivity might be the norm everywhere the author has gone, but it's still not something one can rely on in every corner of the globe. That being the case, "suitable for use while traveling" really might not apply sometimes. By the author's own cited definition, Chromebooks - like the one I'm typing this on - might not be real laptops for many people.

In both cases, the author starts with a grain of truth and then destroys his own point with exaggeration. The piece would have been far more effective if he had stuck with the facts - which are damning enough - instead of letting his bias shine through.

Well, in spite of the silliness of those commercials, lately I have been creeped out when I start getting blasted by adverts from all over the web based on something I recently searched on. Often times, I'll quickly look up something / fact check what I've read in an article (most recently was "longevity insurance" annuities and reverse mortgages), and now I'm getting a whole bunch of ads aimed at older / retired people on many sites that I visit. And these ads have nothing to do with me, except that I happened to fact-check something a couple times. Kind of makes me want to re-think any of my web searches, and do them in a private browsing window.

I can't really say why this bothers me -- maybe it is because I know that their ad matching algorithm gave inaccurate results (so it grates on my OCD, maybe?), or maybe it just feels like I'm being stalked by people trying to sell me something.

Thanks, Captain Obvious. Now that we've established that the campaign is childish, can we move on to the question of whether it's working? I viewed the "Mac vs. PC" Apple ads to be a bit childish (and it's almost all Macs and iOS at our house), but folks seemed to like them. Can the same be said for "Scroogled"? Of the one or two I've seen, I think I'd go out of my way to avoid the MSFT product out of spite. But that's just me. Maybe my judgement of what people like is as poor as it was for the Apple campaign.

> it was actually later proven that Bing brings many of its results from Google's search engine

What's he talking about? Making this claim without a cite is annoying. Making copy-and-paste not work so I couldn't even copy and paste it here is even more annoying.

I found the ad hilarious. Google is an ad company. A brilliant ad company, but still an ad company. As far as I know, this is something that is not on most consumer's minds.

The scroogled ads are pretty good for microsoft standards.

My concern is less with the data collection, and more with the lack of native application support. If it looks like a laptop, consumers like my parents will think they found the best deal in the world when they come across it. I have talked both of them out of buying one because it won't run the work applications they need (they wanted to use it to replace their aging laptops). If it was a tablet, I'd have no problem with it. Consumers are used to the idea of tablets as toys (and don't expect them to run office and their workplace's custom windows apps).

As a programmer, I really don't want another platform to write native apps for; there are so many already. I'll learn it if they get enough market penetration. I don't know enough about the native APIs for the chromebook; how different is it to write a chromebook app than an android one? Is it web only? Are you really cut off from any functionality if you aren't around wifi?

This is the company that shamed its own customers by calling them "dinosaurs" for not upgrading to new versions of Office. In a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.

When it comes to their marketing, absolutely nothing surprises me any more.

1. According to MS, this campaign came out of a survey where something like 45+% of users didn't know Gmail scans their emails, and 80+% of those didn't approve of it (I think this is the survey http://www.scribd.com/doc/124257005/GfK-Email-Privacy-Report). That's a pretty significant number of users.

2. The "I'm a Mac" campaign was childish, and even though I was predominantly on Windows then and the ads were so very wrong, I laughed along at them. Similarly, I'm primarily a Gmail user, but that GmailMan character is hilarious.

3. However the campaign appears to us, apparently it's working?! http://adage.com/article/digital/microsoft-s-google-bashing-...

On the other hand, some doubt if that's really translating into commercial success: http://marketingland.com/microsoft-scroogled-campaign-61887

Warning Rant mode:

Wow, that is an insanely monetized blog. Does anyone else see random works linking to search ads and if you select something you get a search query ad?

The content is also pretty muddy. In my opinion Microsoft's campaign isn't childish, it's just lame. Does Google do all these things? Of course they do, it makes them billions of dollars a quarter. Does it bother Microsoft that they can't seem to get away with the same kinds of things? Of course it does, their search ads monetize at 1/3 to 1/5th the rate that Google's do. Would they like someone other than folks who understand how search works to "get" this ? Sure.

But that is the same battle animal rights people have trying to convince egg eaters that the eggs came out of tortured chickens. At one level it may be true, and at a much larger level it may be totally irrelevant to the consumer.

So where does that put the OP who is trying exploit Microsoft's strategy to pick up some AdSense coin out of Google? Does he care? Really? His subtext is "Hey we're all gettin' rich here off the Goog, Microsoft. Go whine somewhere else." Heck Google doesn't particularly care about their search results at the level where this is being argued, they only care that they are tasty enough to lure enough eyeballs to feed their customers, the advertisers. If they get less tasty they will fix them, if someone gets mouthy about whether or not their content should be considered tasty they will fix them too.

There is web search technology which is one thing, and there is web search the business which is a completely different thing. Confusing them will make it hard to reason coherently about them.

Do we really need an article to explain why it's childish? It's face-slappingly, consumer-insultingly childish.

It's also somewhat insidious. I was watching my local morning news show when the anchors cut to a segment featuring a "tech reporter in Washington D.C." who was going to give advice about buying tech gifts for the holiday season. Laid out on the table were a bunch of Microsoft products and the reporter proceeded to spew a hit piece aimed squarely at Chromebooks. Never was there any indication that it was a sponsored story but it was clearly a Microsoft backed segment. It was truly bizarre. I don't know how often companies pay news shows to pimp their stuff but I've never seen anything that blatant before.

I recently bought a laptop for my daughter this Christmas. I considered all makes and models and finally decided on a Dell running Windows 8. I looked closely at Chrome Books, but felt she would be at a disadvantage without Windows and Office. It cost more than the Chrome Books, but I felt it was the right choice. She can still use Google services if she likes and MS software and services as well. I thought it was the best, most versatile choice. Just my own personal experience, I can see the value in Chrome Books too.

> it was actually later proven that Bing brings many of it results from Google's Search engine

This turned out to be a lie, right?

If you really think that, giving it more attention isn't a great way to combat it. I'm sure they knew full well that there was going to be some negative reaction, but that the trade off for brand awareness (so much free coverage of their ad campaign) and introducing some level of doubt in some consumers' minds was worth it (see: negative political attack ads, Mark Penn, etc).

(and bringing up Bing copying Google's search results, and the ad campaign backfiring and somehow leading to chromebook sales isn't going to lend itself to a non-stupid HN discussion)

Microsoft's Scroogled campaign is hilarious.

Crying about Microsoft's Scroogled campaign is childish.

"Scroogled" is used by Googlers ironically as in "Scroogled again: only three flavors of soy-free vegan whipped cream in the cafeteria today!"

I like the "wearables" response also.

>When asked about the shirts, Google said that they "are very interested in Microsoft's latest venture. The wearables market is becoming very competitive".

This could be taken as a reference to Google Glass. MS and their vendors don't seem to have anything near ready to show to compete with Glass, but apparently they're on top of the T-shirt game.

Scroogled. Office 365. Surface. Xbox One. Microsoft's marketing seems to be remarkably tone-deaf across-the-board.

I never understood companies who spend millions in marketing to promote their software rather than spending that money on improving said software.

Why not just build great software that speaks for itself rather than try to manipulate your potential customers with high risks of backfire, as in this case.

It may be childish but Apple's similar childish campaign completely destroyed Microsoft's brand.

I think I'd be less bothered by the campaign if they weren't selling merchandise. For some reason, that seems to be the tipping point for me. The campaign is idiotic and now seemingly hypocritical but the attempt to market merchandise just feels weirdly desperate.

More or less childish than Samsung commercials who associate the iPhone with brainless caricatures standing in line?

was it just me, or were the comments on that story unreadable until highlighted?

Great. I hope Microsoft goes after Google even more. SkyDrive blows away GDrive. Windows tablets are coming into their own right, while Android is pretty much "meh" these days. Google flails away aimlessly with their chromeOS strategy, all the while doing lots of evil (with Eric Schmidt on the board still how can it not).