At first when I heard about the Microsoft “I am a PC” ads, my first instinct was that the world’s biggest computer company should not feel the need to respond to Apple’s “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ads which had aired more than six months ago. It signified that not only that they gave a damn but also they were likely to loose control of the debate.

After seeing the hundreth Apple ad mimicking and stereotyping the Microsoft user, I started to see Apple as the bully of the playground. Poking fun at the perceived ‘not so cool’ Microsoft user was like the ‘IT’ girl in the playground with the cooler nike trainers picking on others. Microsoft approached me to be in the I am a PC – you can see my VT here:

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I wanted to do it not only to get the Lady Geek brand out there but more importantly, I am tired of the unconditional and undeserving love people have for the Apple brand. The original reason for the Apple brand being so desired, was clearly a great product but also this idea of being the underdog and a brand for the non conformist.

With Apple’s growth rate surpassing Microsoft, has Apple become the brand for the lazy conformist? The person who can’t think past the mac tax and see the new sexier brands like asus and acer chomping at their heels? Is Apple’s behaviour precisely the behaviour of that which they criticized Microsoft? Have the tables turned? And ultimately, do the I am PC ads successfully connect women with Microsoft?

I showed some Lady Geeks the ads and they got an encouraging response. With comments from ‘I love the stories behind the technology’ to ‘it made me reappraise the role of technology in my life.’ If its objective is to build the brand ethos first and foremost, its clearly successful. It has managed to move away from the technology and product specs and talk about what technology means to women and what they care about. It achieves Malcolm Gladwell’s fundamental question of what can Microsoft mean to people over and above being a software developer.

But if its aim was to get people to reappraise Vista, then there is a fundamental problem to solve. I asked my female colleagues at work what they knew about Microsoft Vista. All are tech literate, bright and articulate 20 and 30 somethings. I got answers ranging from ‘is it a credit card?’ to ‘something on my computer but I am not sure what.’ The majority of women don’t know or care what an operating system is, and could not identify Microsoft’s flagship product as an example of an operating system.

Meanwhile Apple seem to have no difficulty communicating the value of OSX – it seems as if every insignificant widget is trumpeted as if it were the greatest development in computing since the invention of the mouse. Apple are fortunate to have fans who create a reality-distortion field through which apple’s products appear magical – and under the same lens Microsoft’s products are by definition the exact opposite.

Lovers generally tend to overlook the faults in the object of their affection and Apple have been very good at building that kind of affection amongst their audience. Microsoft have never invested in building any kind of emotional connection with their audience – which is what makes their new campaign such a significant departure from their normal product-focused, conservative advertising. With the imminent launch of Windows 7, Microsoft claim to have fixed the technical issues that disappointed so many Vista users – now the goal should be to fix the marketing so that women understand and care about this thing that Microsoft have made, and understand how how it enhances their life.