A new kind of dishonesty

Here's a curiously disturbing trend in the advertising industry. As so often happens, it started with Microsoft.

Here's a rough transcript of a Microsoft commercial I've heard a lot recently:

Microsoft's phone sales rep calls a Windows 98 customer:

MS Flunky: "Is this Mrs Sta...Stag...Stagofroto?"

Customer: "Staphofroto. (annoyed) Who's this?"

[The previous exchange sounds pointless, doesn't it? I think it's designed to make us feel sympathetic for the bumbling MS Flunky]

MS Flunky: "I'm calling on behalf of Microsoft, and I understand you just got your Windows98 upgrade, which makes anything possible. It makes loading programs 35% faster! Tell me, Mrs Staphofroto, how much faster has it made your programs load?"

Customer: "Well, it does load them faster ..."

MS Flunky (interrupting): 35% faster?

Customer: "Well, I guess ..."

MS Flunky (hangs up phone): "... well, I guess. That's but more proof that Microsoft Windows98 makes anything possible. Well, maybe not anything ..."

Okay, my question is this: If Windows98 really doesn't make everything possible - and I have total confidence that it doesn't - why does Microsoft persist with this odd slogan? Does Bill Gates, who likes to think of himself as the World's Smartest Man, have an ego now larger than the planet?

No. Note how the MS Flunky admits the slogan is wrong. But he uses it anyway!

The obvious idea behind this is to plant the fraudulent idea into people's brains, while not technically conducting fraud. MS wants people to think Windows98 makes everything possible, even while admitting it doesn't.

I find this type of marketing morally repulsive, regardless of the nature of the product or service being sold.

Back to David's Anti-Microsoft Page