All posts tagged copy

Microsoft copy: Nietzschean emptiness with a Freudian slip

By now you’ve probably seen the monumentally embarrassing Windows 7 party video from Microsoft. Hopefully, you’ve also caught the censored version that imbues an entirely different meaning to ‘make sure you have the right devices to hand’.

And you’ve probably worked out, shortly after asking the question, ‘how could a global corporation with billions of dollars and swathes of talent at its disposal come up with something so crass?’ that it is meant to be deliberately bad so that it will spread virally around the Internet. No publicity is bad publicity and all that.

And here we are talking about Microsoft.

I’m wondering whether the same is true of Microsoft’s marketing materials for Windows 7. Are they deliberately terrible to ensure that people talk about how bad they are, thus spreading the word? After all, you can always blame your marketing guys for badly describing a product, while enjoying the attention that your product is gaining.