Posted by Christopher Lyons on Thu, Jul 16, 2009
Being that I was an advertising major in college and now work at
Trigon Technology, a company that deals primarily with technology, I came across something that really caught my attention. Over the past couple months, Microsoft (whose ad campaigns weren't able to compete with those of Apple), started running some ads that were drawing some serious interest. These
"Laptop Hunter" ads were so effective that Apple had to come out with a
retaliation ad of their own (I have to admit, I think both are pretty clever). However, it didn't just stop there, according to Kevin Turner, Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer. Yesterday, while speaking at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, Turner said "two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying 'Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.'" Turner also stated that "they took like $100 off or something, it was the greatest single phone call in the history that I've ever taken in business." Turner and Microsoft also insist that the ads will continue to run. There's nothing like a friendly competition.