Microsoft is feeling a bit threatened and is deciding to fight back against all of its big rivals.
The search engine fight has just begun, and there is no question that it will take a long time for Bing to make Google shake in its boots anytime soon. And, even though Yahoo has about twice as much search market share in the U.S as Bing, it should still be a little worried. Bing’s growth has been impressive in its first month. They are also giving Google a run for its money with Microsoft Office on the web.
The most important competitor though of course, is Apple. Microsoft has just announced that they will be opening up retail stores. Their locations? Right next to Apple stores.
Microsoft was never eager to run an advertising campaign, until Apple did. Fortunately for them, Apple never had a large enough market share to really threaten Microsoft. That is, until the Apple “Get a Mac” campaign, a huge hit, highlighted an array of features supporting its clear superiority.
Last year, Microsoft responded with its “I’m a PC” campaign, which got some attention, but not enough. The new Laptop Hunters campaign has achieved tremendous success, which can be measured by Apple’s response: calling Microsoft and begging them to stop the ads. More specifically, they argued the ads were inaccurate and must be pulled immediately.
Microsoft’s COO Kevin Turner, when asked about the new ad campaign, offered this bit of information:
“And you know why I know [the commercials are] working? Because two weeks ago, we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey - this is a true story - saying, ‘Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.’ They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, ‘Is this a joke? Who are you?’ Not understanding what an opportunity. And so, we’re going to just keep running them and running them and running them.”
As the battle gets hotter, consumers should not only look forward to more creative campaigns, but their counter replies to each other!
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