Experiment For Children

Back when I was a kid, I run into a very interesting book in my parents' library. Apart from various social games, it also involved funny experiments for children, but not only for them. Anyway, the idea is that some experiments should remain for children, while others have no age limit, but what about advertising? We all know at least one of those interesting banned commercials, but I also happen to know a lot of failed advertising experiments. I don't know what others think just yet, but my personal thought is that Microsoft just managed to throw off the window some millions...

...since the campaign to promote Vista has just started, but not with the right foot, if you ask me or any of the people I managed to talk about this topic so far. Let's start with the name - The "Mojave Experiment". All I want to say about it is "experiments can fail, thinking never fails."

Just think...different! When I see this name, I can't stop thinking about Apple's "Think Different" campaign. While that was targeting the users' needs, and pointing out that Apple and its customers are special, Microsoft goes the other way around.

While Apple's evolution is slowly pushing them towards the same "evil corporation" image Microsoft has for a lot of people, I can't help but notice that The "Mojave Experiment" is nothing more but a collection of samples with similar results. Everyone finds something nice to say about Vista, the people in the videos are all full of joy, smiling, maybe in the near future they'll also add someone to kiss a Windows Vista DVD case...

I have seen a lot of bad TV ads, and a lot of brilliant Internet marketing campaigns. In fact, I think most Internet campaigns I've been checking out were at least well done. The "Mojave Experiment" is not. I know, there may be people that like it, and I have nothing against them. In fact, I would really like to hear their opinions, but before closing this article, I would like to ask all of you one question: did you notice anyone pointing out how Vista is useful to people with disabilities?

Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, and I can't go as far as claiming that someone saying "Vista is a mess" should appear on the experiment's site, but I think Steve Ballmer just managed to throw away a bucket full of money to show people that try to look honest, but fail with one major task: behaving like a bunch of different computer users, with different opinions, not just different ways of saying "Vista is sexy, amazing, incredible" and so on.

Now, let me add that the Mojave Experiment is nothing more but an experiment for children, because "disguising Vista" as "Mojave" is something that would insult any person using a computer more than 4 hours per week. Well...that's it, Vista got beaten up severely by Mac OS X, and the experiment for children could be easily turned into a better one...by disguising Vista into...Mac OS X!