Pandora and Mac vs. PC

I will be the first to admit that I am a smidge obsessed with Pandora. It knows me almost too well. There have only been a few times when I had to offer it a ‘thumbs down.’ Outside of tapping into my music-loving soul, I appreciate Pandora Radio for its strides in advertising targeting.

Pandora targets, interacts and persuades me to click links, download videos and generally pay attention to its advertisers–which is not exactly an easy feat. This morning I was confronted with a brilliant advertising ploy by Microsoft. (I know I was shocked myself). Here’s how it went:

When I logged into my account, the first ’song’ to come up wasn’t a song at all. It was a picture of the iconic PC from the famed Mac v. PC ads that we have all come to know and love. The copy was “watch my ad.” I oftentimes find these TV ads to be hilarious, so I bit–and clicked on the ad. To my surprise, the link was to a Microsoft-sponsored landing page. It was extremely well-designed site that featured 10 second blurbs on PC fans from every walk of life you can imagine.

I spent a good minute or two watching random people tell me who they are and why they use PC computers. This is two minutes more than I have spent on Microsoft’s site ever. When I went back to my Pandora station, I realized the PC guy was in fact not the actor from the commercial (just someone who looks remarkably like him).

Tou Che Microsoft, Tou Che. I applaud your guerilla marketing tactic and excellent casting job.