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[Ian Ballantyne <ian@onlineloop.com>]

>From NY Times David Pogue Column, direct via email.

Ad Campaign Leaves Pie on Microsoft's Face  

People accuse Microsoft of devious tactics all the time. Microsoft generally 
denies the accusations - after all, they're flanked by the best lawyers that 
money can buy. 

This week, though, Microsoft gave itself a big, goopy pie in the face. On 
Oct. 9, the company posted a testimonial on its Web site called "Confessions 
of a Mac to PC Convert." It was a first-person account by a "freelance 
writer" about how she had fallen in love with Windows XP. She compared the 
operating system to a Lexus. "I was up and running in less than one day, Girl 
Scout's honor," burbled the attractive, 20-something brunette in the photo. 

There was only one problem: She doesn't exist. 

A with-it member of Slashdot.org, the popular hangout for articulate nerds, 
happened to notice that the woman's picture actually came from 
GettyImages.com, a stock-photo agency. Associated Press reporter Ted Bridis 
took it from there. He tracked authorship of the article to one Valerie 
Mallinson, a public-relations woman hired by Microsoft to write the story. 
Microsoft was caught red-handed. 

I was dying to find out how this public-relations fiasco came to pass, but 
Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla would speak only in Officialese. "The article 
was mistakenly posted to the Microsoft Web Site," is all he would tell me. 
"Once we realized that it wasn't part of the Windows XP marketing activities, 
we pulled it. It's an unfortunate situation, and we take responsibility." 

No wonder Microsoft has become a laughingstock online. "Once we realized . . 
. ?" Hello? Exactly how disconnected are the right and left hands of 
Microsoft's marketing organization? 

And then there's the feebleness of the ad itself. Not only is it a childish 
attempt to mimic Apple's "Switch" campaign, but Microsoft's bogus customer is 
hopelessly misinformed. "AppleWorks pales in comparison to Microsoft Office 
XP. There's no equivalent for the versatility of Microsoft Word, Excel and 
PowerPoint," she writes, evidently never having heard of Microsoft Word, 
Excel and PowerPoint for Macintosh. 

Then she makes it worse: "Internet Explorer 6 does more for me than Netscape 
Navigator ever did. . . . I can name and organize my Favorites any way I 
want." First of all, Internet Explorer is on the Mac, too. Second, had Ms. 
Fictitious ever, in fact, used Netscape Navigator, she might have realized 
that it, too, permits naming and organizing bookmarks. 

To be sure, the online community is wasting no time in rubbing these gaffes 
in Microsoft's face. But nobody's mentioning the most disturbing part of all 
this: That it's part of a longer string of fraudulent Microsoft marketing 
efforts. 

In 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that Microsoft, during its antitrust 
trials, hired PR companies to flood newspapers with fake letters of support, 
bearing ordinary individuals' names but actually written by Microsoft PR 
staff. Payments were funneled through Microsoft's PR company so that the 
checks couldn't be traced. 

Later, during the antitrust trials, Microsoft attempted to prove the 
inseparability of Windows and Internet Explorer by showing the judge a video. 
There was only one problem: The government's lawyer noticed that as the tape 
rolled on, the number of icons on the desktop kept changing. Microsoft 
sheepishly admitted to having spliced together footage from different 
computers to make its point. 

And now a phony testimonial illustrated by a photo bought from a stock-art 
agency. 

What does all of this say about a company's corporate psyche that it feels 
the need to fabricate evidence of the public's love? 

Maybe Microsoft is jealous of the genuine affection Mac fans seem to exhibit 
for their machines. Or could it be that the company somehow feels rejected by 
the quirky (and as far as anyone can tell, real) people in Apple's "Switch" 
ads. 

But more likely, Microsoft's latest blunder demonstrates neither jealousy nor 
wounded pride - it's pure arrogance. The company thinks it can get away with 
anything. This time, at least, it's wrong. 

A screen shot of the original Microsoft ad can be viewed at: 
http://www.scripting.com/misc/msSwitchAd/lies.jpg.