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Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by Stuart Turton
Microsoft goes mad with new IE8 ads
Whatever the Microsoft marketing department is on over at its Redmond HQ, long may it continue. The company’s just released its latest ads for Internet Explorer 8 and while I’m not a big fan of the browser, I’m a massive fan of these web-only ads.
Obviously inspired by the television series Mad Men the campaign features a wonderfully terrible Dean Cain hamming it up as he eulogises on the browser’s best features. Surreal doesn’t even cover the humour, which is well … odd and clearly straight out of the same camp as those Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld ads which I loved and everybody else hated because the world is wrong. If anything though, it’s seems clear there’s a renewed confidence within Redmond following those Laptop hunter ads which did so much to sting the cool Apple exterior.
The videos are posted below for your gratification, though we’ll warn you in advance that the O.M.G.I.G.P features projectile vomit. On the bright side, the G.R.I.P.E.S video will teach you where Dean Cain lives. Really. We know… Microsoft, what’s the world coming to.
27 Responses to “ Microsoft goes mad with new IE8 ads ”
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July 2nd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
*WARNING* Do NOT use Internet Explorer 8 – this web browser presents an unacceptable security risk.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Hmmm, not bad. Made me chuckle a few times at least. Odd doesn’t begin to describe the humour though.
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:12 am
*WARNING* DO Ignore comments from Ken Bundy making claims without offering any facts to back them up.
If you want some facts have a look at secunia.com. IE8 fares very well on the security front.
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:00 am
Very funny. Good to see a big company such as Microsoft taking a risk with ads that won’t be to everyone’s taste.
Totally odd and off the wall, but so nice not to see the usual American drivel.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:24 am
G.R.I.P.E.S -It is official by their own add, IE8 is old and out of date!
Slow internet, then upgrade to Chrome or Firefox, modern up to date browsers that are shaping the internet.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:12 am
Aside from the usual foaming-mouthed hysterical abuse thrown at IE8, I return to the point.
The humour in the ads is fantastic. Absolute genius.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
Why is it that anti IE people come out from the woodwork at the slightest chance. It is about the ads people!
The ads I thought were funny and a nice step change from the usual syrupy safe ads – Well done M.S. I laughed.
Oh and BTW I am a Firefox user of 3 years (got to love those extensions).
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
“How did you get in our house?”
Hehe I like ads like these, they’ll never make mainstream acceptability, but they do very much appeal to my warped sense of humour.
Can we please stop arguing about browsers here? I’m a Firefox user, but I can still appreciate a decent advert for something even if I don’t recommend it.
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Great adverts – found them very amusing yet think they’d be informative (I already knew everything about IE8).
I’m personally a Firefox user but do use IE from time to time for some things – it’s not a bad browser at all.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Why is it people do not understand how bad Internet Explorer (and Microsoft to be honest) actually is?
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Great ads, great product. Abusing IE and Microsoft is so boring. And people, please get off the “I prefer Firefox” bandwagon. Firefox has some major issues and is not a patch on IE’s overall performance and integration with windows OSs. Reminds me of the mindless Apple fans. (And yes, I have developed in all abovementioned systems)
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Doesn’t (or didn’t on the Beta Version) work with Outlook Web Access. Not impressed with it and downgraded back to IE7. Now downloaded Firefox as a comparable browser!!
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Have to use All the browsers when debugging a bespoke website. I use Firefox, and have done for years, as my default. IE has presented some “interesting” challenges to whether a site will break or not.
Books have been written about the hacks needed for developers and designers to use with each incarnation of IE.
Version 8 is the closest they have come to being complient. But IMHO, it still sucks canal water in just about every department against Firefox. Safari 4 is a good browser to play with too. But seriously, for everyday work it HAS to be Firefox.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:47 pm
More Microsoft bashing I see. I spend up to 12 hours a day between work and home using IE without crashes and other problems. My job requires a dependable machine with ready internet access. I normally have IE loaded with at least 6 active windows. Guess what, Windows with IE works fine if used as designed. Firefox users must need it because they also loaded all that crap freeware like Google et al toolbars, registry programs, optimizers, benchmarkers, Winamp, chat programs, iTunes, and so on to “enhance” their computers. More often than not all this freeware junk causes many unexpected free problems because the developer did not have a million beta testers available to debug their programs. Free is not better.
July 4th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I still have no idea what innerned exporer ade actually is.
Can they not manage to pronounce the letter T?
and above: “Guess what, Windows with IE works fine if used as designed.” yes, it’s perfect once it is removed from the OS.
That, affter all is where it should be. Internet Explorer is a terrible browser. Use Firefox and grow up. The fact is part of the diabolical shambles that is the “Where the hell are my files/difficult by design” Windows 7 exacerbates the issue.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Ermmm,
To echo some sentiments above, how did the comments turn into a discussion on which browser is best. Who cares, the ads are funny. I to use all browsers when building a website. The comments above remind me of some of the useless replies you get on geek forums when asking why something doesn’t work on Win2003/IIS7 and you get a reply like “well that’s your problem, you’re using windoze, you should be on a ‘nix”.
Lighten up!!
July 5th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Yeah, I thought the ads were quite funny, although the amount of puking on the first one was a bit gratuitous!!
As regards, the IE8 knockers, they always seems to say things like IE is crap, or its bad etc etc. They hardly ever come up with any concrete evidence to justify their claims, and in fact most of them haven’t even used IE8 l, or haven’t used it for any length of time so don’t know what they’re talking about.
I say most of the major browsers are good products, and IE8 is a perfectly good browser, SO GET OVER IT!!
July 6th, 2009 at 11:22 am
@Richard: Thankyou so much for telling us all about the secunia.com website. Their “Binary Analysis Archive” shows two hits when using the search term “firefox” and 20 hits when using the search term “explorer”!
So, I say again, avoid Internet Explorer 8.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
@Ken Bundy – sorry Ken, I was assuming too much. I thought you might at least be competant enough to understand the secunia website. Obviously not. The Binary Analysis section contains the results of the vulnerabilities that have been analysed by the Secunia team to establish a binary signature, mainly for use in AV programs. This is not the same as their vulnerabilities tracking database.
Have a look at the Vulnerabilities By Product section, specifically under Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.x and Mozilla Firefox 3.0.x. Not quite what you expected to see, I bet
)
So, I say again, DO Ignore comments from Ken Bundy making claims without offering
any facts to back them up !!!!!!
July 7th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Truely awful ads, does someone at the agency think they are witty or cool?
Grim.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Mildly amusing. I get the impression that MS are like a group of exploratory teens. Trying to copy ideas here without understanding that there is a difference between laughing with and laughing at things. These are mildly amusing (like the sharing one), but sorry, they simply do not get it. Don’t try to copy Apple’s approach without engaging brains. (Or design software for that matter… without engaging intelligence)
July 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
What SHEER UNADULTERATED KRAP!
These guys are living in their own world.
RIP Microsoft.
We hardly knew ye!
July 9th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
It seems as though a lot of American commercials are going towards this strange humor of awkward commercials. I don’t really like it, but that’s just me. At least they’re not as weird as those crazy Japanese commercials and shows.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Kind of sad that you even need to advertise your browser like this to try and convince people to use it.
July 9th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Funny, but honestly I have a hard time taking these seriously. I’m actually not thoroughly convinced they’re the real deal, by which I mean, I’m not sure whether these are Microsoft-produced ads meant to promote… well, anything.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:07 am
[...] Internet Explorer 8 ads? They were just the beginning it turns out. [...]
July 27th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
hahaha all you firefox loving peeps…there is quite simply nothing wrong with ie7 or 8. use firefox if you wish, personal preference but its not better…more customisable? yes, some would say customisable with crap….