Microsoft opens Pandora's box (again)

New spots out from Microsoft are both insightful and flawlessly executed.

The insight is rich, the delivery succinct and the message quick to resonate. These easily pass the "it should only take a few words to tell a story" test.

Here's one of two:



This is a bold, risky, and presumably carefully calculated, move by Microsoft. So, does that make their new product positioning and subsequent ad campaign a good idea or a bad idea?

What's for certain is that Apple has a hold on the smartphone market, having both first mover and innovator / status advantages. Blackberry and Droid, plus the handful of small players, continue to give it their best go, with promises to offer similar functionality with some other form of advantage - like better coverage or a keyboard that makes it easier to type, etc. Unfortunately for those guys, nothing comes close to matching the breadth of app options or non-business interface ease of iPhone. (Beyond that, I can't say much more in defence of the iPhone since I'm still a loyal blackberry user, and consequently not an app user)

Microsoft could have chosen to play it like Droid and simply introduce another app-friendly, cool looking phone. It would then have been forced to compete on price, app interface, usability, coverage with exclusive service provider, sheer new-news, or cool / slick looking factor, none of which are really sustainable competitive advantages, so it probably would have been destined to failure from the start.

Instead, they decided to do something else - expose the very phenomenon that iPhone created and revolt against it, exposing app obsession and promising an interface that offers the best of both worlds. That is, all the live feeds and updates one desires, without the obsessive button punching and tinkering that go hand in hand with using apps.

I think the 'zig when they zag' approach is smart, but then again, let's not forget what happened when they tried the same strategy with KIN, albeit a tween-targeted product, but one I personally thought would be at least a niche success.

The question is whether the Windows 7 smartphone is truly capable of transforming the behavior it promises.

The advertising has laid a fine foundation. It claims life altering potential.

The question is whether consumers want - or are really ready for - their lives to be changed. The heads-down-app-obsession is absolutely a real behavioral observation. It's annoying, for sure, but do people want to stop doing it OR just stop seeing it?

Is it simply annoying to watch? Or only annoying when you find yourself on the other side of the table attempting a conversation with someone who is doing it? What about when it's you doing the app'ing?

What if the evolution of consumer behavior has fundamentally created a more curious, introverted society? A culture obsessed and happily engaged with its tech toys and private world? A people with common desire to get lost rather than pay attention to the boring, mundane company we're forced to keep on a daily basis?

Could it be that talking smiley face or crazy bird game is simply.........more interesting than what our friend / boss / spouse / colleague / etc has to say?

Then what?

I think given the paths available to choose, Microsoft took the right one so I'm calling this ON STRATEGY, but the jury is still out on whether the phone is capable of actually changing behavior.