Latest Microsoft “family” commercial airs, focuses on PowerPoint

By Tom Warren, on 7th Nov 11 2:30 pm with 36 Comments

Microsoft’s latest “it’s a great time to be a family” commercial features Microsoft Office PowerPoint on a Windows 7 PC.

The new ad campaign aims to demonstrate Microsoft’s broad product portfolio and the integration across Windows, Windows Phone and Office. The first 30 second spots aired last month across the world. The concept has been put together by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the agency responsible for launching Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.

Microsoft’s “Homework 2.0″ commercials features a Dad and his son working on their Windows 7 PCs. The dad is preparing a rather bland PowerPoint document and the kid makes it a little more interesting with a mix of flashy graphics and punjabi music in the background. The advert aims to highlight PowerPoint features on Windows 7.

The latest advert is part of Microsoft’s holiday push. Microsoft aired three similar spots in October and another earlier this month. The first two failed to impress the majority of WinRumors readers, however the third and fourth faired better in our comments section. “Thats actually a really good commercial,”noted WinRumors reader Ardentra. “OneNote is the best kept secret out of Microsoft in years!” Is Microsoft’s latest “Homework 2.0″ commercial any good though? Let us know in the comments section below.

  • http://www.facebook.com/noe.brito Noe Brito

    Why don’t they make eye contact?!

    • Anonymous

      They did, they just used Skype to converse….

  • Tim Gabrhel

    This commercial demonstrated NOTHING related to the Windows ‘ecosystem’ in the way that all others have. The kid just knew more about power point than his dad.

    • Anonymous

      don’t they these days anyways…

  • Anonymous

    I prefer the commercial where the kid uses Powerpoint to convince his parents to get him a dog, and then the dad tries the same thing to convince the wife to let him golf more. Haven’t seen WinRumors post that one yet, but it’s my favorite of the Microsoft commercials thus far.

    • Anonymous

      it was shown on winrumors. The general consensus here was that it wasn’t very good and MS needs a new marketing team.

  • Nikhil jain

    This is not a new commercial, its already air in india since last month. 

  • Anonymous

    Nice

  • Aziz Tukubaev

    Did anyone notice that after finishing watching youtube video, it shows other related video thumbnails in a metro style? :)

    • http://profiles.google.com/carlosrfonseca Carlos Ribeiro da Fonseca

      Yup.
      It seems Metro/WP7 is the interface that Google is copy… err… using as inspiration these days.

    • Dalgarven

      They arent the only ones, orange.co.uk has a metro stlye feel to it as well.

    • Test1ngi23

      Squares? Are you serious? Google uses an extremely simple grid of squares and now their copying Metro? Wow, did Microsoft copyright squares?

    • Mark King

      I think they mean the way they float in, not that they are a grid of rectangles.

    • Guest

      Are you still whining, fired boy?

  • Anonymous

    I personally think MS should be plastering these videos everywhere and add the “How did they do that?” links with them. Here is an example of one of the How to videos.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykXquYHjEaw&feature=player_embedded

  • Anonymous

    msft marketing as bad as ever. again, how does this make me want this product? an ad that doesn’t even do that shouldn’t make it out of the marketing cubes. seriously, msft, have your marketing people go back to college or just have them watch an apple ad.

  • Anonymous

    This is a nice ad!

  • http://profiles.google.com/carlosrfonseca Carlos Ribeiro da Fonseca

    PowerPoint, again?

    Instead of showing things like sharing Office docs with SkyDrive, playing games on Xbox against someone on WP7 Mango or even playing HD videos stored on a PC via XBox with Media Extender, you know, the *cool* stuff, they promote PowerPoint that most people associate with boring, dull, time wasting meetings?

    Wow, just wow.

    • http://twitter.com/starksimon Stark

      This. Who the fuck cares about PowerPoint!? Show some cool stuff with young, sexy people, not two ugly geeks playing with PowerPoint, FFS! MS has to fire the whole marketing department and their agency, CPB, right fucking NOW.

    • Anonymous

      I’m not sure how aware you are of how HUGE the Office line is to Microsoft.  As a business, this is a product that consistently sells and creates good numbers for them.  Advertising and re-advertising is necessary for it. 

    • http://twitter.com/starksimon Stark

      Are you serious? I’m very aware of what you’re saying. But this ad is clearly targeted at consumer market, not business. Of course, not everything in our life is just fun, fun, fun, but MS needs to push the cool stuff they have. Nobody is going to run to their nearest store and buy a new PC just because of this ad. And luring people to buy your products kind of is the point of advertising, right?

    • Anonymous

      So, in your opinion, this ad is going to get people to run out and buy Office? I think not. Also, if Office consistently sells and generate good numbers (BTW… they do so without theses dumb ads), then shouldn’t Microsoft be looking to put ad $$ into products that aren’t doing so well? Where is the Win phone commercial that’s going to get consumers to take notice of the platform, Microsoft?

  • http://twitter.com/RobertCFP Robert Wade

    Love the wedding commercial.  Hands down, the best one.  This one was about what, again?  Oh, yeah, Powerpoint.  Really?  I thought it was about a snot-nosed kid using his dad’s computer without permission and potentially screwing up his job.  You barely even notice that’s it’s Powerpoint.  Okay, so that’s 1 out of 3 commericals that work.

    • Anonymous

      Those kids. Always meddling with my laptop without permission and screwing up my job! The next commercial will demo Undo and how to revert via Windows shadow copies.

  • Simplycani

    okay samsung n Acer.. i was trying to find which laptops wer those ..bcoz its been removed when the ad is telecasted in here (india)

    • http://twitter.com/kid_jenius Daniel Paulino

      i think the samsung is the samsung series 9 laptop and the acer is the new acer s3 ultrabook.

  • Anonymous

    why do companies advertise products that are already successful and is recognized by pretty much everyone. Is there a single person here who doesn’t know about PowerPoint? However, commercials for products many people don’t know about are almost none existent. Good use of your advertising budget MS.

  • Guest

    MS needs to fire Crispin. I don’t care how well regarded they are in advertising circles, their work for MS sucks.

    • Anonymous

      Include the MS marketing department in that too. The ad agency alone should not take responsibility for this crapware marketing. They couldn’t be putting these out without the direct involvement of the MS marketing department. These folks are a total joke and should be used in MBA courses as example of how not to market your products.

    • Guest

      They already “retired” the last one. This is the replacement. And apparently he’s just as useless.

    • Anonymous

      No way… unbelievable. They are either getting candidates from the same discard pile, or there is some family connections involve i.e. individuals getting the job who aren’t the least bit qualified for it. This could end up hurting MS products, and especially Win Phone, bad.

  • Siddarth Malhotra

    The song was Mehndi Lagake Rakhna from DDLJ – Whoa!

  • http://twitter.com/pierrerv Pierre Venescar

    Metro will be on everything Google pretty soon.

  • http://www.techin5.com Techin5

    Didn’t like this one.

  • Rmineo2

    The wedding one is my favorite also!!!  But it’s not airing on T.V.??????

  • Penelope

    Like the new homework commercial.