Microsoft wants you to know that Internet Explorer 8 is the perfect web browser for porn addicts.
At least that’s the message I walked away with after (reluctantly) watching their new IE8 commercial, in which a wife projectile vomits after finding porn on her husband’s laptop. (If you care to see it, it’s available here.) The point of the commercial is actually to promote IE8′s InPrivate browsing feature, aka “porn mode”, which hides the browsing history from, well, unapproving spouses.
Really, Microsoft? Really? Of all the various features of Internet Explorer you could’ve promoted, you chose to lead off with this one? Yes, the commercial is disgusting, but what I really don’t understand is why Microsoft thinks InPrivate is such a killer feature. After all, Chrome and Firefox 3.5 both have identical features, but those browsers are also much faster than IE and adhere better to web standards.
It seems to me that if Microsoft really wanted to go head-to-head against their competitors, they would try to do so in a way that spoke directly to the user base that would be most likely to use their product. That’s the tactic they took with their “Laptop Hunters” commercials, and it’s the reason those ads work. They’re not targeted at technical users, but rather non-technical consumers who, when shopping for a new computer, just walk into Best Buy and purchase whatever’s on sale.
And that should be the target audience of these Internet Explorer ads: the people who know nothing about Firefox, Chrome, or Safari, and couldn’t care less. They could talk about the speed improvements over previous versions of IE. They could talk about improvements in supporting web standards. They could talk about web slices, accelerators, or other new and unique features. Instead, they resort to low-brow slapstick that says nothing about the product other than it’s great for married men with an addiction to hardcore pornography.
Not exactly a winning message, if you ask me.
(By the way, the vomit commercial is just one in a series of ads — all featuring Dean Cain — that comprise their Browse for the Better campaign. Ironically, as part of the campaign, Microsoft will donate 8 meals to Feeding America for every download of IE8. Here’s hoping the recipients of those meals can keep their food down.)
Previously:
Internet Explorer 8: Faster but no Firefox
New Microsoft ‘I’m a PC’ ads: too little too late
