Microsoft appears to have got it wrong again with one of it’s ads. Whilst some would have you believe that Kin is the talk of the town….whats Kin? I hear you ask, well its the latest product which Microsoft just can’t seem to be “cool” or in touch with the public. In a nutshell, Kin ads were pulled because of a short clip where a lad takes a photo with the Kin underneath his shirt which most people probably wouldn’t have noticed. However (believe it or not) the Microsoft Safer Online team [1] did and pulled that part of the clip off the ad. Self censorship so to speak. They had this to say:
Microsoft has deleted the inappropriate portion of the Kin video. We take sexting very seriously, & are sorry it happened.
I personally don’t think anyone cared about 2 seconds of ad about yet another Microsoft scheme to let it bother them. A commenter on the story sums it up quite nicely:
I’ve been watching the journey videos, but hadn’t seen this. How microsoft can be so stupid (lame attempt at cool and over-reacting by re-editing)….
So is this further example of how out of touch Microsoft is? or what about how hideously unpopular the Microsoft brand name is with users damning Microsoft regardless? Microsoft sounded upbeat about the whole incident by saying:
We have received feedback that one of the Kin lifestyle videos has a scene that did not come across in the spirit it was intended.
A kin lifestyle? What a horrible thought. I wonder what that exactly entails? What “spirit” was it intended Microsoft? Could it be that you thought it would be funny, but yet again as you saw with your unfunny shoe adverts, the joke sort of turned on you? Im surprised though that anyone paid Microsoft’s latest scheme enough interest to notice.
Should we remind ourselves of other Microsoft schemes? one of my favorites had to be the vomit inducing Windows 7 Party ads and whilst the originals were sickening, this user edit was far better. I’m not sure the Safer Online Team would approve.
Notes
[1] Yes, believe it or Microsoft does have a Safer Online Team (which we will be covering later) one has to wonder that in the face of all the exploits and security holes reported on Windows that maybe this particular Microsoft team uses Linux? - We will explore this in a different article – Microsoft and online safety? Its bound to be a hoot!
Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com
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