Vintage Computer ads

This post brings together two of my passions together: computers and advertising. The ads below are vintage ads from some of the world’s largest technology companies. Do you guys remember the first computer systems you ever got? I know I do. It was called the Sakhr computer, made by AlAlamiah, a Kuwaiti computer company.


Einstein-Apple ad


This ad was created as part of Chiat/Day's "Crazy Ones" campaign for the Apple computer company. The late Steve Jobs wanted a marketing effort that reflected the company's philosophy of "thinking different" I think the campaign is better known by its "Think Different" tagline.

Hitchcock-Apple Ad

Here is another print ad from Apple's "Think Different Campaign.

Verbatim Disks 

I am not completely sure of the identity of the marketing firm behind the ad above. Although, through my research I have discovered that Marken Communications, an agency that helped them put together a PDF to celebrate 40 Years of Data Storage Innovation. Do you guys remember when PCs came with 3.5" disk drives?

 IBM Computers

An ad from one of the largest computer companies in the world but for the life of me, I cannot behind the agency behind the ad above.

Microsoft Software

I couldn't find the ad agency for Microsoft either for the 1990s but these ads are a great read if you are feeling nostalgic. Well, I hope you enjoyed these five ads. You can find more of these ads thanks to Andy Sowards.

 Best,
-A.B.

Microsoft Tries to One Up Apple

Since Apple is through thrashing Microsoft with their famous “Get A Mac” campaign created by TBWA Chiat/Day. Microsoft tries to one up its rival with its new campaign. The new campaign points out the lack of Blu-ray in even the latest Mac currently available in the market.

I am almost 100 percent positive that in subsequent they will point out features available in Windows 7 that the Mac doesn’t currently have. Oh, and the ad agency for Microsoft is CP+B.

Best,
-A.B.

Windows 7 Phone, Really

The new Microsoft Windows 7 phone campaign, by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, shows things happening to people that make them go “Really”? Meaning, the things that are happening to them are so, utterly unbelievable they can’t believe it actually happened which makes them exclaim, really? Some of the example scenarios from the spot include viewing your phone while in the shower, dropping your phone in the urinal because of texting while in the men’s room, but texting while giving a message has to be my favorite only because saying “really” at a time like that seems truly appropriate.

Although I have to say advertising is supposed to present your product in a good light. Seeing all these people in such unlucky situations may turn people away from the phone in my opinion. What do you guys think?

Also, is the phone dead on arrival? I mean, with iPhones, Androids, and Blackberries, is their room for a fourth phone on the market that’s so late to the party?

Best,
-A.B.

Officially My Most Hated Type of Ad

The ad you see above has officially become my number one most hated type of ad. Here are just a few of my reasons:

1. It pops up unexpectedly when opening up an app on your iPhone.
2. It covers the whole screen making you uncertain if you are looking at the app or the app has crashed unexpectedly.
3. The close this ad button is usually within the smallest area of the screen.
4. On the iPhone in particularly the close button is hard to push because of the lack of physical buttons.
5. Trying to close the ads sometime cause you to accidentally launch the ad. This is known as a miss-click and you probably just added to the advertisers revenues even though your click was inadvertent 

The ad above that I clicked on displayed when I launched my Huffington Post iPhone App. The ad was promoting another app for the Microsoft’s Bing Search engine. As a matter of fact, clicking on the ad opened the App Store page to download and install the application.

I think it is part of the iAd network. What do you guys think? Oh, and the ad you see above is directly from my iPhone.

Best

-A.B.

Bing Keeps you from Looking Like a Moron or Does it?

Sorry for the long delay between posts everyone. But I can’t write posts in my office anymore because of recent changes to my work schedule. Anyway, let’s talk about Bing baby. Bing is Microsoft’s latest attempt to catch up with all mighty Google with respect to search engines. The campaign claims that Bing is the “Cure” to search overload.

If you watch the spot you can understand what they tried to do with this particular creative execution. They are simply saying that with traditional search engines your results are loaded with sites that seem related to what you searched for but they really aren’t. The way they visually demonstrate this is by having one person say something they are looking for like “cheap tickets” and others would make a million suggestions for similar terms. After even 10 seconds of listening to this you will be extremely annoyed and that when they make the statement Bing is the cure to search overload.

This spot and several others like it were done by JWT. Microsoft is all about being the cure to diseases these days. In this particular spot, they are curing “Search Overload Syndrome” or S.O.S. JWT has provided the software giant with several other diseases to cure. They say Internet Explorer 8 cures F.O.M.S and S.H.Y.N.E.S.S. The other diseases I read about via Adfreak.

What do you guys think about Microsoft being a cure for your search ailments? I never really thought of Microsoft as the cure for anything, I thought of them as the problem. But hey, as you all know these are all just my opinions.

Best,

A.B.

Microsoft and Basketball

Is it possible that Microsoft is trying to get into the spirit of March Madness with the ad above? Maybe I don’t have as good of a grasp on what quality advertising is, as I once thought. Why is the illustration above relevant to the product being advertised by the Redmond company? For those of you who don’t know, Microsoft Visual Studio is used for writing programs. How does the copy in the ad above make the connection related to monsters and basketball?

Also, what does the illustration represent? Do the monsters represent viruses? My other issue is who exactly is the target audience for this particular print ad? By the way the ad was taken from Information Week. How does this ad promote Visual Studio to the readers of the magazine? I would think that the ad seemed rather stupid to the magazine’s target audience.

I am not quite sure who the ad agency behind the creative is and I know that Crispin Porter + Bogusky does quite a bit of the Microsoft creative. But I highly doubt they did the print advertisement above. They seem to be a class above the work shown here.

Best,
A.B.

Mac VS PC Ad Wars Continue

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 &#8211; Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 &#8211; Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

So Microsoft has come up with a new advertising tactic in an attempt to combat the beating Apple has given the Microsoft brand with its Mac vs. PC ads. The Redmond company’s new advertising tactic is to point out the significant price increase between Macs and a traditional Windows PC. The price is about the only point that Microsoft can honestly combat the folks down in Cupertino with.

In the ad above the actress proclaims after visiting the Apple Store and not finding a laptop within her price range, she was not cool enough to be a Mac person. She promptly got in her car and headed to a store loaded with many “Windows” options. At the store of course, the young actress found the PC for her. To conclude the commercial the actress declares, “I’m a PC and I got just what I wanted.”

Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the hot Miami ad shop created the spot lovingly dubbed “Laptop Hunters” The Microsoft account is worth approximately 300 million to the agency. Hopefully these ads are more acceptable unlike the Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld spots the agency did previously. Those ads were a flop in my opinion. Also, with the current state of the economy I think people will appreciate the PC’s lower prices.

But I have to say I am a Mac guy myself. By the way I’ve written before on Mac vs. PC ads but from a creative execution point of view as oppose to the message being promoted here with “I’m a PC.”

Best,
A.B.