Microsoft’s undertaken a three-hundred million dollar campaign to rehabilitate its ratty image. Microsoft got the ratty image by selling ratty software.
What to do? Fix the software, or convince people its good software when it’s not. Therein lies a truth about corporation sand people: they’d rather spend more to look good than less to be good. The difference is the emotional cost they’d not incur: the acknowledgement that they’re not as good as they present themselves to be.
Here’s Apple’s latest commercial deriding Microsoft for focusing on advertising, not software:
There’s a municipal version of all this – in decals, signs, banners, logos, etc.
Perhaps, though, I’ve been too critical of our local approach. After all, it’s the approach of Microsoft, a multi-billion dollar corporation, a software vendor to millions.
Why wouldn’t Whitewater want to emulate the proud creator of Windows Vista?