Ah... yes, that's right, the Microsoft iPod.
This great little video neatly illustrates many things I love about Apple's approach to creating and nurturing the customer experience, and many things I despise about Microsoft's approach to pushing product.
What is it?
This is a short multimedia piece presented as an instructional video showing how the Microsoft branding strategy might be applied to a competitor’s flagship product, the Apple iPod. As a piece of satire, the video’s comic quality lies in the unexpected presentation of a well-known product in a competing company’s packaging.
Function
The “makeover” sequence functions as a story-telling device which relies on our familiarity with both the Microsoft and the Apple brands to work. We already know each of these brands and we are already accustomed to their very different personalities. The process of applying the Microsoft packaging style to an Apple product challenges us to think more about the specific attributes inherent in each brand, why they are at odds with each other and what that says about the markets they target. This is what makes the piece work – once we’ve stepped out of being merely consumers and paused to think about it, there is an invitation to decide which market we’d prefer to belong with.
Source
I first saw this video on YouTube a few years ago and I watched it over and over and over. Even now, every time I watch this piece I notice little things I hadn’t noticed before. The accuracy and the detail is simply stunning. This juxtaposition of creative and conservative has long been the foundation of Apple’s marketing, more recently in the extensive series of Mac / PC TV commercials.
Style
Microsoft is all about business, function, detailed specification and conformity – this brand strategy is aimed squarely at the conservative mass market. The style is aggressive, commercial and leaves nothing to the imagination. The typography is dense and loud.
Apple on the other hand is about experience, form, convenience and innovation – this brand is aimed at the proud, the flamboyant and the creative. This style is minimalist, slick, cool and sharp, leaving us to make it our own. This typography is open, subdued and quiet.
Quality
While each style is vastly different from the other, the quality of both is extremely high.
The Microsoft style demands dedication, technical expertise and time to write, develop and review the written and graphical content and then utilise every available square centimetre of space to deliver every last agonising detail.
Equally, the Apple style demands dedication, creative expertise and time to develop, refine and simplify the content and then deliver this message as efficiently and cleanly as possible.
Why do I like it?
This video piece is fast, snappy and most importantly, very, very clever. Whatever your personal opinions about the two companies and their products, most would acknowledge this piece as a poignant social commentary on the nature of consumerism. There are few better examples of the divide between the creative and the conservative.
As for me, call me a MacAddict, an iSnob, whatever you like... I’m proud of it!
:)
