May 29th, 2007

Dell's not serious about Vista either

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:17 am

Categories: Dell, Marketing, Vista

Tags: Dell Computer Corp., OEM, Microsoft Windows Vista, Video, Microsoft Corp., Dell, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

When you consider that Microsoft has poured half a billion dollars into the marketing of Windows Vista, you’d expect that the OEMs would be able to put together a credible campaign for the new OS.  Long Zheng discovers a link to a video on the Dell website which could hardly be called professional (YouTube link here).  I have to warn you though, it’s pretty grim.

I was actually looking around for the new Ubuntu offerings when I stumbled across this promotional video titled “Vista vs. XP“. I was expecting to see flying-buzzwords and all sorts of hype-generating effects that would have wow-ed the customer into getting Vista as soon as possible, but it turns out to be a piss-poor attempt at explaining what an operating system is with a corny script and unspectacular demos. Have a look at the video to see what I mean.

Here is a list of things that bugged Zheng:

• “Can you see it?” - Who at Dell came up with this crap? Microsoft obviously didn’t. And what’s with the face expression that looks like he wants to murder someone when he says it?
• “Many of you won’t be able to run Vista on your current system specs” - What a great way to get people excited by telling them how incompetent their computer systems are.
• Tina Riquelmy, the “Vista Expert” - You would assume a “Vista Expert” might be someone from Microsoft or an Microsoft evangelist who really knows the guts of Vista, but it turns out Tina is actually a Senior Product Manager at Dell. What’s with her voice? It gets quieter and quieter. At least find someone who’s a little more energetic.
• “Phenomenally different than any operating system you’ve ever used”. So let’s rename an album in real-time. (1:30) - Dell decided to showcase the phenomenally different digital music experience that is in Vista by showing a 15-second clip of “how-to” rename your music albums.
• A security scan that freezes on the first file (2:35) - A bit of a trivial thing, but at least record a demo when software works as it should. Windows Defender stuck at scanning the first file for is not a good demo.

I have to agree with all the points raised.  The video is boring and uninspiring.  Not only does it leave me not wanting Vista, I wouldn’t want a Dell either.  In fact, forget the whole PC, I’m off to stick my head in a gas oven.

I’d like to add a few of my own criticisms:

• Shots over the shoulders of a notebook user doesn’t work
• The translucent windows example just doesn’t get the point across
• Too many random media center shots that just don’t make sense

I also agree with Zheng that these campaigns that the major OEMs have come up with (we’re concentrating on Dell here but the campaigns that some of the other OEMs have come up are pretty lackluster) aren’t a patch on the Get a Mac ads.