Apple demands Microsoft stop its Laptop Hunters ads

Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, told partners during his Worldwide Partner Conference keynote not only about the upcoming Microsoft Stores this fall to be placed near Apple stores but also about how Apple’s lawyers wanted Microsoft to take down their Laptop Hunter ads. Here’s the story he told (keep in mind that it’s coming from a Microsoft executive):

And so we’ve been running these PC value ads. Just giving people saying, hey, what are you looking to spend? “Oh, I’m looking to spend less than $1,000.” Well we’ll give you $1,000. Go in and look and see what you can buy. And they come out and they just show them. Those are completely unscripted commercials.

And you know why I know they’re 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. (Applause.)

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 just going to keep running them and running them and running them.

You can read the whole transcript of Turner’s keynote on Microsoft Presspass.

The most recent Laptop Hunters ad features Matt and Olivia, who are looking for a $700 computer they can use to share pictures of their son Jayden with friends and family. It needs to have a large screen and great battery life, and of course they find their dream machine.

These are the best ads Microsoft has run in a while; they’re clearly working, but we’re not sure Microsoft should keep them going for much longer. Hopefully the software giant will think of something fresh once Windows 7 rolls out.

Source: ArsTechnica