Microsoft ad says that Macs are too cool for its customers

When it comes to advertising, Microsoft just can’t seem to get it right lately. From the weird and incomprehensible onscreen banter between Gates and Seinfeld to the Mojave Experiment to the more recent “I’m a PC” campaign, Microsoft has been missing the mark. And its latest commercial is just one more step in the wrong direction.

In a new one-minute spot, Microsoft shows what a “real person” does when given a budget of $1,000 to shop for a notebook—the real person in this case being a woman named Lauren (pictured), who also just happens to be an actor (to be fair, actors need computers, too). Microsoft offers her $1,000 to purchase any notebook she wants within that limit and she gets to keep anything that might be left over after the purchase.

Since a 17-inch screen is her primary requirement, it’s unsurprising that she finds nothing within her budget when she walks into “the Mac store”. After she leaves the Apple Store, she remarks that maybe she’s “just not cool enough to be a Mac person.” A YouTube video is embedded below as proof so you know I’m not making this stuff up!

Clearly, Microsoft’s intention here is to point out to the whole wide world that Macs are too expensive and, really, they would all just be better off with a cheaper PC, but if this is the best the company can come up with, then someone is not doing a very good job. Microsoft’s backhand shot at “coolness” is just trying to reinforce the view that Mac users are simply stuck-up snobs who pay too much attention to such mundane things as how good a computer looks—but I think it might just come across as an admission of inferiority to the casual observer.

Of course, like the Mojave Experiment that preceded it, the basic idea behind this ad is skewed. If you start out with a set of criteria that already eliminate the possibility of Apple being a contender (like, say, a notebook with a 17-inch screen under $1,000), is it really that surprising that its products don’t pass the test? It’s like Microsoft saying that it’ll give you $1,000 to buy a computer, as long as it doesn’t have an aluminum casing.

In any case, just be sure to check out the video after the jump. If nothing else, you’ll probably get a nice chuckle out of it.