This truly leaves me speechless.  I’m really torn on whether this is just another lame ad, or if it’s awesome.

I’m leaning towards the latter…

(Why is it a recurring theme for small Facebook ads to be visually offensive?  Is this really one of the better ways to advertise on the site?)

Aside from the insanely idiotic Seinfeld-Gates commercial, Microsoft has pulled yet another move revealing how clueless they are about marketing. “Microsoft Gurus”?  Really?

Before I tear into Microsoft, let’s talk a little bit about the experience of dealing with an Apple Genius.

The best thing about Geniuses is that they don’t come across as employees - they’re just passionate Apple users.  I don’t mind talking to them because their behavior doesn’t signal that they are being paid to talk to me.  It comes across as a very genuine interaction.  Geniuses don’t even actively try to make me buy something.  Seriously, they’re barely a step above Barnes & Noble employees when it comes to pressuring sales.

Microsoft Gurus, however, are going to be giving demos to the tune of “See how Vista doesn’t suck as much as you thought?”  Apple’s Geniuses are perceived as passionate users.  Microsoft doesn’t really have many passionate users at this point (other than Steve Ballmer), so these poor Gurus are going to come across as thinly-veiled shills who are restraining their desperation.

My point is this:

When you have a product that is great and can sell itself (Apple), it doesn’t matter that there’s someone (Genius) who is encouraging the sale.  But when you have a product that’s perceived to be awful (Vista), anyone’s claims to the contrary (Gurus) are going to be perceived as highly specious.

Vista genuinely sucked for software that spent 5 years in development, and customers spoke up. The “Get A Mac” ads didn’t tarnish Vista, and the Mojave ads won’t save it.  Marketing was never the true cause of Microsoft’s problems, nor is it the solution.

Microsoft - Put your marketing money into making a better product; one that will sell itself because people love it.

One last thing…

My favorite thing that I noticed while writing this post was that the Mojave Experiment site didn’t work for me.  Reason?  I needed to install Silverlight in order to watch the videos.

Putting up a barrier for customers to watch your ads online?  BRILLIANT!  Oh, Microsoft…

Click to see Mojave's landing page

This article is hilariously bad.  The author more than likely has no experience and speaks English as a third or fourth language.  If you want to make your online marketing efforts worse, just do exactly what he tells you… that is, if you can understand him.

Here are some of the gems:

“Banners. These type of product promotion is place on the top portion of a particular web page. It has the ability to attract customers because of its animation and noticeable way to get the attention of the people.  Catching the audience’s attention is the primary objective of an internet marketer. The persuasion skill should be honed if effective enough to win a large market. The more convincing power you have, the more profit enters a business.”

Really?  Catching the audience’s attention is the primary objective?  Well that free iPod nano lady must be a freaking jedi master at online marketing!  Banners are myopic and insanely ineffective.  It blows my mind that companies waste money on them.

“To begin practising your web marketing skills, how about you set up an internet society online that will enable members to post their tips on a particular topic. It does not need to sell products but you can start from simple ideas. For example, build a web page that will enable members to publish their poems and other kinds of literature.”

Awesome.  I’m sure TONS of people will come to my website to publish their poems.  They’ll ignore WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, and even Poetry.com.  Or I guess I could just start my own blog and gain a following with quality content… Nah, that’s too easy.

“Always be on the go and innovative. Updates via internet is totally fast!… To keep yourself in the warpath, you should not allow yourself to be left behind. You must always have fresh and new ideas to inject in promoting an item.”

Was this article intended for people who have no understanding of the internet?

“These are just tips that you can consider or not… Absorb these ideas and I am dead sure that you will be indeed, a great internet marketing guru!  Daegan Smith is the leader of the fastest growing team of successful home business enterpernuers on the net. ”

FAIL.  See how easy it is to b.s. online?  Anyone can do it!

There is only one concept you need to grasp in order to become a great marketer, and that is: People are self-interested.

“Well, obviously.  That’s just basic psychology.  How does knowing that make me a great marketer?”

Because so few people actually put that knowledge into practice.  After interning at an ad agency for 3 months, I knew that even businessmen were self-interested to the point where it was hurting their bottom line.  I watched companies demand flashy websites that would dazzle the eye - they wanted to get their money’s worth, damnit!  They didn’t care that the majority of the people who’d be coming to their site actually hated all that fancy nonsense.

Again, people are self-interested.  You have to approach every thing you do with that in mind.  Stop thinking about outselling your competitors, or doing what’s cool, or telling everyone how many awards you’ve won, and start thinking about what’s important to your customer.  Then find a way to genuinely communicate how you’ll benefit them.

Let me illustrate my point with Tim Ferriss’ book, “The 4-Hour Workweek.” It was a runaway best-seller because of Tim’s unique approach to self-promotion, coupled with great content and an incredibly dynamic title.  However, “4HWW” was not his first choice for titles.  His original choice was “Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit.”  He thought it was a clever title because that was what he used as the title of his lectures.  When he test-marketed to see what title was the best, “4HWW” was the obvious choice.

Tim is a smart guy, and he decided not to cling to his favorite title choice; he went with the market winner.  But he very easily could have thought, “Hey, I’ve been giving lectures at Princeton for a long time with that title - I know for a fact that it will work.”  No, it won’t.  People simply couldn’t see the benefits they’d derive from a book about drug dealing.  But people can very easily see the benefits of having a 4-hour workweek (more time with family, take up hobbies, etc.)

Just because you think something’s clever, beautiful, funny, awesome, whatever - it does not mean your target market thinks that. The most boring people you meet are the ones who only talk about themselves.   They are painfully unaware that they’re self-interested to a fault (every female on the planet can confirm this after being on a miserable date).  But the coolest people you meet are the ones who relate to you and make you feel special.  They don’t talk about themselves, they talk about others.  They talk about you!

The most important lesson I learned from Seth this summer was: it doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what I think.  It matters what the market thinks.

I guarantee that if you approach every single facet of your business (hell, even your life) with the understanding and appreciation that people are self-interested, the relationships you have with your customers (and even your spouse) will improve dramatically.

Hey!  If you landed here via Seth’s PDF that he posted, I suggest you check out the page up top (underneath the first cow).

I also invite you to:

• Subscribe to this site
• Email me
• Download a single copy of my PDF here: charlie_hoehn_pdf.