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\n \n Aloke Pillai\n Jun 29 2009 1:57 AM\n
Wow, they are trying really hard eh....
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\n \n Mick\n Jun 29 2009 2:06 AM\n
Hahahaha - awesome.
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\nI don\'t mind a bit of strangeness and ambiguity. I didn\'t mind the Jerry Seinfield ads. Sure beats a lot of the other crap that gets put on tv (ie. Lost) :P
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\n \n Kiwi\n Jun 29 2009 6:08 AM\n
Hmmm ... I remember being in love with Dean Cain as a tween (OK, before there was the word \'tween\', but whatever), so they\'ve got the right audience there.
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\nThough he\'s not as good as I thought he\'d be ... which kinda sums up the videos: they don\'t quite work. Don\'t know whether it\'s the editing, or just that self-depreciating humour is something better dealt with by subjects of the British monarchy!
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\n \n WilhelmR\n Jun 29 2009 11:05 AM\n
S.H.Y.N.E.S.S. was awesome
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\nF.O.M.S. was weird and great
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\nAs weird as it is, it\'s better than the vista ads with people randomly flying around the screen. :)
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\ni likez to stabz!
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\n \n devolute\n Jun 29 2009 11:25 AM\n
These are actually pretty good. So good, that I can see through my hatred of IE (I\'m a web-developer) and actually enjoy them!
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\n \n Bob\n Jun 29 2009 1:26 PM\n
First time in a while I actually laughed out loud at an internet video. Good stuff :)
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\nAlthough I\'m highly sceptical whether I\'m gonna like the advertised features as much...
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\n \n RJDanger\n Jun 29 2009 4:59 PM\n
Not a big fan of any of them. Poor talent, weird lighting and the overly long obscure acronym has been done. Not funny or interesting. Benefit was lost in poor casting of Dean.
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\nmy 2¢.
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\n \n Ai-chan\n Jun 29 2009 6:57 PM\n
Those are not funny ads and I dont think any amount of funny is going to make Microsoft less of a devil.
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\n \n Alex Harris\n Jun 29 2009 7:17 PM\n
Nice kerning, not.
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\n \n Microkid\n Jun 29 2009 7:39 PM\n
Is that superman?
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\n \n Alphab\n Jun 29 2009 7:44 PM\n
Those ads actually ridicule the very user they\'re targeting. Their \"new\" features solve only the problems of those presented as freaks. So for you to recognise they would be useful to you would require that you identify with the freaks...
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\nAnother MS ad Fail.
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\n \n Frank\n Jun 29 2009 7:45 PM\n
To each their own but I was still quite surprised that anyone found these amusing. I can\'t imagine any category of humor in which these would be funny. Perhaps Microsoft should ask the company that is making their ads for bing.com to create some IE8 ads. The bing.com ads are the only good Microsoft ads I think I\'ve ever seen, and they are actually really good.
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\n \n FalKirk\n Jun 29 2009 7:45 PM\n
I think the ads are quite clever. Before I finished reading this article I read the several articles you linked to and I\'m in complete agreement with you that the other commercials were failures, deceitful or just plain kooky. But kudos to Microsoft for coming up with such a new and funny approach.
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\nNot that I don\'t care much for the underlying product. And I hope the ads fail miserably and Internet Explorer dies a short and painful death. But give credit where credit is due. The ads are good.
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\n \n Taylor Satula\n Jun 29 2009 7:46 PM\n
I wonder what \"generations old\" browser they want you to upgrade from G.R.I.P.E.S.
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\n \n Darran\n Jun 29 2009 7:48 PM\n
I love these, 5 stars.
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\n \n rel1sh\n Jun 29 2009 8:06 PM\n
@Darran
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\nI hate you, 0 stars.
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\n \n Mike D\n Jun 29 2009 8:07 PM\n
Wow.
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\nWatched the first one then decided against viewing the rest.
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\nPoint missed, I guess?
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\n \n Marcos El Malo\n Jun 29 2009 8:13 PM\n
@Taylor: Probably Netscape 3.0 ;-)
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\nOverall, these are pretty funny. I liked OMGIGP the best. It\'s doubtful I\'m going to change my browser based on the strength of these ads, but I still enjoyed watching them. (Can\'t say the same about the Bing ads.) Good on you, Microsoft.
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\n \n Brady J. Frey\n Jun 29 2009 8:15 PM\n
5 stars for what? Trying really hard to fit in also known as being trendy, while completely avoiding any real proof that they\'re offering anything that\'s better?
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\nThey have to stop this. They need to sell their product and their experience, not a representation of their product and experience.
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\n \n joost\n Jun 29 2009 8:38 PM\n
Teh font used for their lolcat iz not Impact!! Blasphemy!
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\n \n Paul\n Jun 29 2009 8:41 PM\n
I love ripping on Microsoft as much as the next guy, but I have to give Microsoft credit for trying to clean up their own mess of IE6. They don\'t have to spend any money on getting people on to better browsers. I\'m sure every web developer out there would rather be working around IE8 bugs than IE6 bugs.
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\nAlso interesting & smart to target not proverbial \"grandparents\" but those who provide them with tech support (and watch hulu).
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\n \n Scott Falkner\n Jun 29 2009 8:47 PM\n
GRIPES is plain stupid. What browser, I wonder would grampa have that\'s \"several generations old\"?
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\nOh, heck, they\'re all stupid. I can tell someone meant for them to be funny, but they forgot the funny.
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\n \n Saad\n Jun 29 2009 9:26 PM\n
The ads themselves are quite weird, but oddly enjoyable at the same time. However, I feel they\'re targeted at the wrong audience. The biggest IE6 holdouts are corporations and not individual users. IE7 users have been rapidly adopting IE8 fairly quickly.
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\n \n denise\n Jun 29 2009 9:34 PM\n
I\'m ae IE hater but I\'m pleasantly surprised at these ads. I thought they would be lame but they are kinda funny. Still hate IE though!
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\n \n Hamranhansenhansen\n Jun 29 2009 9:44 PM\n
It\'s bizarre to see them use speed as a selling point when IE 8\'s speed is being used as the baseline reference for other browsers which are all 2x-8x faster than IE.
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\nIt tells me that their advertising is still solid bullshit. They\'re still just making up the points they want to advertise rather than basing their ads on any real products.
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\n \n Andrew\n Jun 29 2009 9:46 PM\n
Hate to say it, but I actually found these quite amusing; I enjoyed the faux public service announcement feel of it. Wish the government could come up with something this good.
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\n \n Rob\n Jun 29 2009 10:20 PM\n
I met Dean Cain and he\'s a nice guy but I\'ve lost all respect for him since he\'s only doing it for the money and I know no self respecting person would encourage anyone to use such an antiquated browser as IE8.
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\n \n Graveyard Fields\n Jun 29 2009 11:08 PM\n
I was really rooting for the woman to puke on her husband one final time at the end (maybe even end the spot before the upchuck is completed). That would have pushed that bit into the realm of comic brilliance.
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\n \n Gazoobee\n Jun 29 2009 11:10 PM\n
The ads are funny (sort of) for teenagers perhaps, but they could be fantastic and it wouldn\'t matter anyway. What they forget is that people who are smart enough or knowledgeable enough to make an informed choice never pick MSIE. this has been demonstrated in studies (some of which Microsoft funded themselves) over and over again.
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\nThe people that use MSIE are those that just use what came with the computer and they don\'t need to be \"sold\" at all. The people who could be convinced one way or the other are well aware that MSIE is the worst of the browsers because all you have to do is read a single computer related website to find that out. This is as useless as an X-Box ad that\'s aimed exclusively at hard-core gamers.
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\n \n Bradley Montgomery\n Jun 30 2009 12:10 AM\n
The are the bestest ads I have ever seen. The agency who made them must really rock. My workmates, Mick, Kiwi and WilhelmR (not their real names), really like them too!
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\nWe are just typical Internet users. You can trust our independent opinions.
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\nEveryone should get Internet Explorer 8.
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\nBrad.
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\n \n JB\n Jun 30 2009 12:44 AM\n
If you look at what they\'ve put out over the past decade, there\'s a common thread of desperate unfunniness in virtually every single Microsoft TV ad. I keep reading that they have different agencies handle each different campaign, but they\'re always the same.
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\nToo often they\'re solving problems that don\'t actually exist, or making fun of things that nobody can actually relate to. It\'s been said that the best jokes have an element of truth to them, and I think this is part of why their ads fail miserably. The random humor is there, which can definitely work when used right - but the problem is that there\'s nothing truly compelling or relevant being communicated. They\'re just mildly amusing skits promoting the latest version of a browser only used by people who don\'t know any better.
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\n \n Guru Panguji\n Jun 30 2009 2:32 AM\n
Wow.. that was horrible, despite the obvious humor.
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\n \n Paul\n Jun 30 2009 3:43 AM\n
am a os x user, and am loving these adverts :)
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\n \n Torbjørn Vik Lunde\n Jun 30 2009 3:58 AM\n
I think these commercials are funny, but I don\'t know how effective they really are. As someone said: they make fun of the user they are trying to convince.
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\n@Rob: What\'s wrong with IE8?
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\nIt might not support CSS3 stuff such as text-shadow, but the CSS 2.1 support is excellent, I haven\'t noticed any bugs yet.
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\n \n Jeremy Chappell\n Jun 30 2009 5:00 AM\n
Err, what? Do we see ANYTHING about the product? (I know, how damn old fashioned am I - wanting to see the frakkin\' product yeesh!)
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\nThe \"dorky\" style is meant to be ironic I think - but Microsoft, you ARE dorky, so trying to do \"mock dorky\" is an epic fail.
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\nSome of these just make you want to stop using the web (SHYNESS - I\'m looking at you here).
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\nI\'m guessing this is aimed at users still using older versions of IE (let\'s face it, IE8 is going to have an uphill struggle against Firefox...) so why not look at how the web has changed, and how IE8 is changing with the web? Honestly, these are just a bit sad.
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\nIf Microsoft REALLY want IE8 to look good, they need to boost the JavaScript performance (or at least \"get in the game\") at present IE8 is just an embarrassment (I mean seriously, who uses IE anymore?).
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\n \n Agos\n Jun 30 2009 6:32 AM\n
A woman puking repeatedly? Tells it all about IE8, I\'d say.
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\n \n Gaby\n Jun 30 2009 6:46 AM\n
Aaah! I love Dean Cain but hate Internet Explorer. I\'m so torn.
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\nWhen did Microsoft get a sense on humour though? Still not a great sense of humour, but for theme, wow.
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\n \n Henrik\n Jun 30 2009 7:06 AM\n
Heh. Those being commercials i actually think they were funny - especially O.M.G.I.G.P. It\'s not going to make me change to IE, but i\'m simply to used to FF and though IE may have been transformed to the best browser ever, i still like the familiarity of FF.
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\n \n Damien\n Jun 30 2009 7:25 AM\n
I like the commercials. Great to see Microsoft step away from their safe area.
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\nThe thing is... the marketing campaigns were never the problem with IE. It always was the browser and it\'s still the browser.
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\n \n Joe\n Jun 30 2009 8:11 AM\n
I like \'em. I don\'t even mind that it asked me if I wanted to install IE8 when I did updates yesterday. I may just download it today and check it out. Does that mean these ads were successful? I guess so, I can tell you one thing though, lines like \"These are way more money dude\" did not deter me from getting a Macbook last week.
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\n \n Tor D\n Jun 30 2009 8:51 AM\n
Not funny at all. Then again, I\'m biased. Lolcats is so old I could kill people for sending me such pictures. Using them for ads is the fucking limit. It\'s not funny when in G.R.I.P.E.S., you know the \"old outdated browser\" is FUCKING IE6 and IE7. Fucking hell, Microsoft. Just give the fuck up already.
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\nMakes me sick.
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\n \n Ben Jamieson\n Jun 30 2009 9:27 AM\n
Jeremey says:
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\n\"I mean seriously, who uses IE anymore?\"
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\nUm, only about 70% of the known world. Designers/Developers may hate it it, but we still have to recognise the competition we use is *way* behind it in marketshare.
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\nAre you living in a cave, perchance?
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\n \n Brazell\n Jun 30 2009 10:47 AM\n
MS has raised the bar for their ads. These, the bing ads, and even the laptop hunter ads are pretty well done.
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\nI\'m an FF & Chrome person, but these ads are so well done I might just DL IE8 to thank them.
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\n \n Benjamin Dobson\n Jun 30 2009 11:14 AM\n
I liked S.H.Y.N.E.S.S., but none of the others. Plus what they are advertising is pure evil. grrr@ie
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\n \n jw\n Jun 30 2009 11:45 AM\n
What works about these ads is that they\'re selling non-cutting-edge users on the benefits of upgrading. The ads are not pulling a New! Improved! without relating it to actual user experiences: one-click sharing, private browsing, web slices (is that RSS? I dunno), and speed. Wisely, speed isn\'t touted for its own benefit, but as a remedy to a problem we\'ve all experienced. Wiser still, Microsoft used this weakest point (speed) and twisted this as a family-tech-support win.
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\nPeople who actually think about or care about browsers are not the target audience here. The target audience are those who see \"the internet\" as a form of entertainment, like television, and who happen to use whatever set is already in the house. This audience sees the browser as simply a means to get to the content they want; for them, browsers aren\'t platforms, they\'re not even worth thinking about.
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\nAnother point: considered demographically, the demonstrated target here is middle-aged women and men over 70. I\'d bet the average reader here is much closer attidudinally and demographically to the \"I hate you, Susan\" recipient of the LOLcat and the tech-support-providing grandson. Of course you hate these ads; they\'re not for you.
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\nFor their target audience, these are brilliant. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera have no message (yet) for these people, and MS is trying to make sure that they remain the strong owner of this gigantic 70% of the market.
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\n \n Evan MacDonald\n Jun 30 2009 12:22 PM\n
I liked the first one. After that they just got annoying.
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\n \n erin n.\n Jun 30 2009 12:35 PM\n
What I really hate most about these commercials is the horrible attention to detail regarding their typography. Especially with type that large, it would be nice if they spent any feeble amount of time kerning and lining things up. Ironically enough they use Helvetica (default on all macs) instead of the Windows \"replacement\", Arial.
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\n \n Ben\n Jun 30 2009 12:53 PM\n
That\'s just some really great design. You know, the whole center alignment of the text really balances out the images, just like completely obscuring the images with the text really highlights the images\' relation to the text. And distressed typefaces, those are really hip and now. It\'s just so wonderful, it must have been done in-house by some really talented sales reps with Creative Suite experience.
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\n \n nate beaty\n Jun 30 2009 1:11 PM\n
i was going to say the same thing as @jw -- these seem more targeted at middle age women and older folks in general. my mom *just* discovered LOLcats for example. she\'d love that ad. the ad that confuses this argument (and me, frankly) is the woman puking on her pervert husband. wtf?
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\ni guess i\'d rather folks use IE8 than IE6/7, but i just dealt with my first rendering bug on IE8 and the fix was implementing their hilarious dumb-me-down meta tag (http-equiv=\"X-UA-Compatible\" content=\"IE=EmulateIE7\"). argh.
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\n \n Mike Wilkie\n Jun 30 2009 1:13 PM\n
As a consumer my reaction is, \"Since when did Microsoft decide they\'d attempt being cool? They\'d do much better if they just owned-up to their image as the maker of tools for business dorks.\"
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\nAs a web developer my reaction is, \"Internet Explorer sucks and is responsible for slowing-down progress on the web. I\'m going to vomit if its market share grows because of these.\"
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\nA a creative director my reaction is, \"This stupid acronym concept first emerged in the \'90s. I didn\'t like it then and I don\'t like it now. The stylistic motif of kitschy melodrama harkens back to Dan Aykroyd\'s \"Bass-O-Matic\" sketch on SNL, which is to say it\'s been done more than Lil\' Kim. And most importantly, there\'s not a single shred of truth in the message. IE 8 represents an upgrade over IE 7 to be sure, but nobody who knows better would ever actually recommend someone use it over Firefox or Safari. In fact, if Microsoft were to offer this project to my agency at twice our normal rate, we\'d turn it down. You can\'t make a good ad for a shit product.\"
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\n \n Joze\n Jun 30 2009 1:31 PM\n
FOMS = Twitter. It wasn\'t so much funny as accurate of today\'s tech-savvy.
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\nThe first three were jokes that were done on College Humor (and subsequently stolen by Ebaums) years ago.
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\nOnce again, Microsoft proves its ability to remain on the \'cutting edge,\' as a company...
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\nIncidentally, I\'m not a Mac fanboy. I just think Microsoft\'s ad campaign in the past year has been laughable at best.
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\n \n Joze\n Jun 30 2009 1:40 PM\n
And in response to JW\'s comment,
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\n\"Another point: considered demographically, the demonstrated target here is middle-aged women and men over 70. I\'d bet the average reader here is much closer attidudinally and demographically to the \"I hate you, Susan\" recipient of the LOLcat and the tech-support-providing grandson. Of course you hate these ads; they\'re not for you.
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\nFor their target audience, these are brilliant. \"
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\nThat defies logic. They\'ve put these ads exclusively on the internet for testing; so, basically, they\'re testing these ads out on a different audience (for the most part) than the intended audience.
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\n\"People who actually think about or care about browsers are not the target audience here.\"
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\nSo what are these ads--public service announcements? Seems a bit pricey to commission ads to announce the good features of your product to people who would be using them anyway.
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\n \n Richard Bronosky\n Jun 30 2009 2:15 PM\n
@Ben, don\'t forget the kerning. Making the text unreadable is definitely a boon for such a message.
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\n \n striatic\n Jun 30 2009 2:21 PM\n
these ads seem to be making fun of their target audience, much like the seinfeld ads.
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\nit is like microsoft sees its users as ignorant, frantic, pathetic losers. these ads pummel you with this impression.
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\nthe best microsoft ads so far have been the \"i\'m a PC\" ads, showing the broad range of \"interesting\" and \"normal\" people who all use windows. the \"laptop hunter\" ads don\'t work as well, since people understand that \"cheap\" is not the same as \"good value\" - but at least those ads aren\'t as bad as these ones for IE8.
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\nwhy would microsoft spend all this money to berate their userbase? i don\'t get it. maybe to allow the macbook toting, iphone using writers at the ad agency to inflate their own egos by poking fun at \"normal\" people? that\'s the only reason i can see for ads like this getting made.
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\n \n Thorsten Claus\n Jun 30 2009 3:23 PM\n
I guess I\'m not the target audience. at all. Why can\'t I find MS commercials funny? Why are they so not-cute? I can\'t even see my mom, or my grandpa, or my non-technical wife getting addressed by these. And they probably won\'t find them, either (unless, of course, I share this site with them, which I won\'t, as the ads will not be interesting for them).
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\n \n Nicole\n Jul 1 2009 12:58 AM\n
SO BAD.
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\nI wonder why people haven\'t been trying to use graphic scenes of vomiting to market things before? It\'s GENIUS.
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\n \n D4rky\n Jul 1 2009 4:09 AM\n
Dear Internet Explorer,
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\nJUST DIE ALREADY.
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\nThank you
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\n \n Vidar Flak\n Jul 1 2009 8:46 AM\n
IE will never be cool again.
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\n \n David Marshall\n Jul 1 2009 1:24 PM\n
These ads are astoundingly unfunny, even worse than the Seifeld series. You\'d think a company like Microsoft would take a more \"elder statesman\" approach by either (a) not creating ads for a free browser or (b) be more clear about their target audience. In their position, they should either woo tech-savvy people or luddites. It\'s like they want to approach both demographics with the same ad.
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\nThe larger question: will IE\'s usage increase (or at least stop bloodletting)? If updating the browser is as easy as the monopoly-workaround \"automatic updates\" in Windows, the answer is \"yes\". Otherwise, these ads are nothing more than an expensive embarrassment.
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\nIt\'s unbelievable these ads were actually shot.
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\n \n Vokabre\n Jul 1 2009 2:21 PM\n
Oh shi...
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\n \n Sumit\n Jul 1 2009 5:39 PM\n
Priceless!!! ... lol ... although I don\'t think it will make people switch from Firefox or Safari. IE-6,7 to IE8 perhaps.
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\n \n Kasper\n Jul 1 2009 5:44 PM\n
Haha, thats awesome. I laughed so hard on o.m.g.i.g.p
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\n \n Diane\n Jul 1 2009 5:54 PM\n
These are right in line with Hulu branding, so I think the ad company hit the nail on the head. IF these are online ads, I\'m sure they will be placed in demographically appropriate websites. I mean, is puke really offensive when you’re used to (insert shocksite URL here)? They\'re not going for broad audience appeal.
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\n \n Clara\n Jul 1 2009 5:55 PM\n
I can totally relate to the target audiences. I used to have the same problems as they do. Then I swtiched to Firefox.
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\n \n Rand\n Jul 1 2009 6:54 PM\n
I wanted to hate them but they made me laugh. I enjoyed them.
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\n \n Shirley\n Jul 1 2009 7:54 PM\n
Despite my hatred for IE, I thought the commercials were alright. They\'re much better than those Mac commercials which became old and boring long ago— nothing against Macs, of course. They\'re not going to make me use Internet Explorer anytime soon though. Personally, I use Firefox.
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\n \n chriskalani\n Jul 2 2009 2:37 AM\n
These are like straight up Emerald Nuts knock offs.
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\n \n Mick\n Jul 2 2009 7:03 AM\n
The comments on this article are quite funny - I thought I was looking at youtube comments for a second...
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\n \n Haha\n Jul 2 2009 7:06 AM\n
@Sumit - lol people actually use Safari? And I thought Rob calling IE8 an \"antiquated browser\" was taking the cake...
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\n \n Youssef Sarhan\n Jul 2 2009 7:21 AM\n
funny to see them use helvetica, the R gives it away.
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\n \n Michael Lynch\n Jul 2 2009 3:29 PM\n
As much it pains me to say this, I actually enjoyed these Microsoft advertisements (this coming from a die hard Apple fan). This kind of \'Youtube\' humor is in right now too, so I\'d imagine these videos would go viral (as I\'m sure they already have).
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\nThe design however, although attractive on it\'s own account, is so far from traditional Microsoft branding that it leaves the user a bit confused. It kind of looks amateur to me (I\'m an amateur myself). I wouldn\'t be surprised to see the MTV crowd latch on to these, which sounds good, but I don\'t think that\'s Microsoft\'s target audience at this point. They just aren\'t trendy enough...yet. The browser better look mighty flashy if they want to make that connection, between the videos and the product that is.
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\n \n Ben\n Jul 3 2009 4:31 PM\n
I think they\'re brilliant. Very funny.
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\n \n Chuck Spidell\n Jul 3 2009 8:51 PM\n
Until IE8 supports true seamless 24-bit PNG transparency, it still sucks. And theses commercials are a bit too familiar:
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\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtOMhCY9B-Y
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\n \n beatpanda\n Aug 13 2009 7:16 PM\n
hurf durf, your browser still sucks.
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\n \n monicus\n Aug 29 2009 4:08 PM\n
get over it. IE is dead. Sorry Dean.
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\n \n Laura\n Jun 21 2011 11:17 PM\n
The ads were pretty good. I liked F.O.M.S. the best. I loved the use of abbreviations!
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