PLEASE ... Why Can't MS Market the Surface?

[Stevesm]

I love the surface but thinkMS' has lost the ability to MS (Market Stuff).


The ads are dumb! They seem to have two sort sf ads out there ... one that may really be for pastel seltzer water and one some kind of thin and alpha shaped desk toy.

It is pretty effin hard to figure out that either ad is for a useful tool that it has a FILE SYSTEM, a USB, built in OFFICE or that OFFICE is integrated (sort of) into the device!

Oh and stick a portable HHD into the USB and I have a tablet with 500mb of memory! Or add a Karma hot spot and I have USA wide WiFi w/o a monthly charge! Try that with Apple and ATT!

I have a iPAD as well but the iPAD is really a media device /cum portal for iTUNES ... not a machine for doing much.

No one I have sat with through the MS commericla for the surface has the least idea what MS is selling other than Apple-ish kool, youthfull, and sparkly.

Mr Balmer ain't no Steve Jobs and it is sad that his woirkers have built a machine that is much better than an iPAD but Stve B lacks Steve J's taste in marketing firms.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I do have gripes about this wonderful machine .. again largely about stupid marketing errors. What FOOL mase it nearly impossible t get to the off button? Howsit that you can not put a custom icn into a tile? Why does integration of the tile interface with the folders require a third party app> why doesn't win 8RT automatically integrate with a Win * desktop?

Seems like some Steve Jobs aclyte got to play a role here .. why no true stylus? why if you must use a crayin shaped stulys to write is there no way to dock it (and why doesn't MS include one for free?).

Answer .. someonbe at MS got confused and thought he was creating the next generation of iOS.

Oh yeh ... Next they want to sell a surface shaped of an ultrabook with a tiny SSD and negligible battery life.

grrrrrr......

 

[SeattleJew]

This is my view as well.

 

[TeknoBlast]

Every time I see the Surface dancing ad, it make me want to dance with my Surface.

 

[J515OP]

I agree with the commercials and was just talking about it the other day. The commercials are cool and MS needs that. They have no personality outside of the xbox. After they have established the cool factor though they really need to follow-up (and now is the time) with feature specific commercials. They need to run both what you can do with the thing and how the thing is cool in its own right.

Apple has taken this approach to the extreme. Now many of their commercials focus on a single feature and tell you how cool that feature is even if it is a completely irrelevant feature. Like dual microphones which cancel background noise. Seriously? This has been a "feature" for a long time and is so widely available most of the time it isn't even mentioned. When was the last time you heard somebody outraged about their call quality (non-network) and lack of dual mics? Certainly it isn't the most important feature they could be showing off.

MS does need to take a page from the Apple book and show the Surface actually doing something though. Really just show it doing anything. Spinning flashy bold colors around the screen and click-click, snap-snap got my attention but what am I looking at? Is this some sort of colorful new iPad cover? Alright I needed something to spice up the white!

MS it is time to put that slogan to use "Click in, get more done" and show Excel, Flash video, live tiles, gaming or even just typing a search into Bing on the browser. If you really want to show us your tricks start showing off the People hub and Smart Glass.

JP

 

[MarcelP]

I'm more angry at the fact they don't have it at Best Buy and Future Shop. I don't mind the commercials... A handful of ms stores isn't gonna sell you 5-10million tablets...At least Win 8 phones are selling( more availabilty at stores perhaps

 

[cali]

Welcome to the site. Yeah, now is the time to start putting some useful info in the commercials.

 

[bosamar]

Remember all the anti-Microsoft adverts during the Vista-era... PC guy and Apple guy... Microsoft needs to have adds that compare Surface to iPad and show everyone why it's a better product.

 

[mrasmussen]

I agree with some of the sentiment here. The original commercials weren't that bad. I know people dancing has nothing to do with what the device can do, but I bet it gets people curious. Now that the device is going to be available in more stores than just Microsoft, and folks are going to get to use the metro interface, the commercials should be feature specific. Like Apple's stupid iPad mini commercial with the piano. A commerical around a user doing stuff at work on Excel, going home, finishing up a quick excel task on the same doc and then watching netflix or something.

 

[Stevesm]

Sighhhhh

The current ads are a confusing, themeless, melange ... more forgettbale than anything else.

Here is what I would do ..

Key Word: DO IT!

Put ordinary folks in situations where they want or need to do something .. form waching a movie to working on a speadsheet.

Have a big PC or Mac in the background, or have someone listening to music over their tablet but have the figure (maybe a consistent person or one of a couple .. walk away to a lunch counter , a living room, lunch room, caubical, airplane and just DOIT.

Have someone struggling to typoe a document on a tabket, then DOIT on a Surface.

Have someone figurijng our out how to pay for 4G then tetheirng their phone as a hotsport vis the USB, DOIT

 

[J515OP]

While DO IT is ok, I think they already have a good slogan to work with "Click in" and the longer version, "Click in and do more" and also "Flip out and kick back." They can do the same sorts of things you are talking about but still arrange them around their tag line "Click in." Why isn't this a main stream commercial? They should show even more than this but it is a start at least.

[video=youtube;mhjGachD5s8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjGachD5s8[/video]

and this

[video=youtube;yswUFCD1x0A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yswUFCD1x0A&feature=player_embedded[/video]

 

[Intangir]

Surface Pro TV Commercials...

Why are they so freaking bad? The commercials seem like they are trying cater to some sort of hip 90's breakdancing teen crowd... They show absolutely nothing informative about the tablet itself other than the stand and a magnet >_>

Has anyone here seen one of the commercials and thought "Woah, that's hip! I want to buy a Pro and bust out into dance!"??
Ireally wish the commercials actually showed the Pro's features from a business/productivity view >_>

 

[kristalsoldier]

That second ad is good....just don't get to see it! In fact, this is the first time that I am seeing it. This ad should have preceded the release of the Surface RT by about a month or two. Two observations: (1) they could keep the same theme but change the situations - school, work, play, holiday etc. Get a wide variety of people from different walks of life to show how they use the Surface and how it helps them to work and play etc. (2) While I agree that the keyboard should be showcased, but it should be a little less prominent. The objective is to sell the Surface concept and not an accessory. Moreover, why not also showcase the Surface as a pure tablet? The first ad, on the other hand, is not very good, I'm afraid.