A one-minute 2012 Microsoft television commercial for Internet Explorer 9, set to Alex Clare's 'Too Close'. It pitches a 'more beautiful web' with fast one-click access to favorite sites.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters cite it as an example of Microsoft's surprisingly stylish newer ads and as a contrast to the company's messaging elsewhere.
Their newest ads are pretty awesome. Surface's dancing ad link , the IE9 dubstep this video , the IE10 troll link , and the various Windows 8 international musical ads (the wave after the countdown ad) linklink and link are definitely a step way up from previous ad campaigns that Microsoft launched. All in all, the Windows 8 ads are IMO fresh, and definitely leaning more towards the younger adult hip side. And they're pulling it off pretty nicely.
Cites itDeepDuhJun 2012
“Compare it to this IE9 ad for example”
IE9 ad contrasted with inconsistent messaging
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Well, Microsoft's marketing was never really known for consistency, was it? Compare it to this IE9 ad for example: this video . Imagine an average consumer seeing these ads and then he sees this: link . Which one do you think he will understand? To which can he relate more? (Btw. I don't say iCloud is good. Microsofts Skydrive on win8 (or whatever they're calling their cloud offerings now, I really don't have an overview anymore) seems quite compelling - but it seems to me like they can't really communicate well enough what it does.)
Cites itSolarNetSep 2012
“it also uses the visual style from IE's recent ads”
IE ad visual style
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I think it has to do with Microsoft's recent social kick (everyone is on that kick lately >.>) and it also uses the visual style from IE's recent ads. (Like: this video )
