Microsoft’s latest “family” commercial highlights OneNote on Windows Phone and PC

By Tom Warren, on 3rd Nov 11 1:32 pm with 49 Comments

Microsoft’s latest “it’s a great time to be a family” commercial features OneNote syncing across Windows Phone and Windows 7.

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 “Keep Shopping” commercial features a Dad out shopping with a grocery list. The list keeps growing whilst he’s out with items like soda, coconuts and candy before the Dad realizes the list is being updated from his Windows 7 PC at home. His two children, laughing merrily, have been adding items to the list and the Dad simply wipes the list out and leaves it with “Do your homework” which shocks the kids. The commercial ends with a smile and the message “it’s a great time to be a family.”

The latest advert follows three similar spots aired earlier during October. The first two failed to impress the majority of WinRumors readers, however the third faired better in our comments section. “Much better than the previous one,” said WinRumors reader Jonny Rose. “I thought it was cute,” said Nicole Claire. The adverts appear to be gaining momentum, is this latest effort better? Let us know in the comments below.

http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

Ha, this was actually cute. I enjoyed this one, but they should have mentioned WP7 a bit more.

Is it me or since Nokia announced their WP7 devices, Microsoft has stepped up their advertising?
http://www.Nave360.com Sebastian Gorgon

haha i love that ad
Anonymous

OK, compared to the first version, this is an improvement. However, I think their overall theme so far has been “annoying situations with your smart phone”. I still don’t want to buy a device just because of this ad.

I think a more effective approach is to show me why I want this phone instead of how it may be used by kids to annoy me.
- Anonymous
  
  They show you just that, and add a fun twist too it as well to make it more memorable. Heck, i recognize my self in that man – with constant updates to the “can you please buy x on your way home from work” that later swells into “the whole alphabet”. This, at least, would make it more manageable for me.
- Anonymous
  
  i see you are a really boring person! geezus… all you got out of this is that the kids are annoying?
- ReturningToNokia
  
  neonspark…This is a Microsoft ad, featuring first and foremost, Skydrive and OneNote. This is NOT a WP ad.
  
  So, is it safe to say that Microsoft failed since this ad, which is not about WP, is completely over your head?
http://www.ardentra.com Ardentra

Thats actually a really good commercial. OneNote is the best kept secret out of Microsoft in years!
- http://twitter.com/JoshMartin7 Josh Martin
  
  Especially the integration they did with Windows Phone.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jairo-Luciano-Alves/100002545369889 Jairo Luciano Alves
  
  Ive been told that before, and yet I dont really know anything about it.. dont know how to use it neither what for..
Sdreamer

Haha, that was pretty good imo. Certainly caught my attention and made me laugh.
- Anonymous
  
  this is a fckng great commercial… it’s things like this that they need to do. pardon my french.
- Guest
  
  Yeah, can’t fault this one. It has a semi-realistic theme for a change. It shows the product (well sort of). And it’s cute.
  
  It’s amazing how popular OneNote is despite MS doing almost nothing to market it.
- Jinge
  
  I started to use it 6 months ago, it is really a great tool! I have never tried it yet on WP, but on a PC it is really nice.
  Once I “chatted” on a shared OneNote notebook on skydrive, it is kind of fun, you can draw, write or anything, just need a webcam and it could be a useful tool!
  Anyway I really like it, and use it as often as I can.
  People who need to write things sometimes should really give it a try!
http://twitter.com/mcakins McAkins Online

I don’t think MS intention is to promote WP7 alone but to promote MS Platform as a cool useful alternative to what is out there at the moment. No one does integration like Microsoft, like they are showing in this Ad.

But why do I always think of Bogus Ads, each time I hear the name of the Ad producers?
- Anonymous
  
  Correct, this is not an add for WP7, nor an ad for Windows 7 (although they do say it all starts with a Windows 7 PC)
  
  this is an ad for synergy. To make people want to partake in the whole Microsoft ecosystem. if we had an ad for every single MS product (windows, xbox, phone, skype, hotmail, skydrive) just to name a few, they would 1) spend more money on ads than their gross income (yes, I’m exaggerating) and 2) there would not be any time left for actual tv programming.
  
  the idea of this ads is to make people aware that everything that is build by Microsoft works in sync with everything else. that way they make a WP7 an abvious buy for the name, not for what features it has.
  
  specially after nokia saying they were introducing cheaper phone, they can’t promote a WP7 phone with all the bells and whistles, and then have Nokia come out with a feature-less phone. People would go up in arms claiming false advertisement.
Gabriel

I actually thought that was a good commercial. But like the other gentleman state, they should mention windows phone more.
s b k

I enjoyed that one as well. The kids expressions were priceless. To me they are really relating to the average family and how simple some of this stuff really is and how it makes life easier to manage.
http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

Yeah, that one is pretty clever. I could see my kids doing that to me…
http://www.mainstreetchatham.com/ JimmyFal

I find Onenote to be quite a compelling application on the desktop but I actually don’t really like the phone implementation as it separates each notebook into individual notes. I think Onenote on the phone needs work. Maybe it’s just me.
- Anonymous
  
  i can agree with you on that.
Monkey D Black

its a good commercial but it doesn’t say what app or that its integrated into ever windows phone. i cant help but feel that there’s something missing. but I’ve seen a couple of their ads recently and it seems they’re on the right track.
- ReturningToNokia
  
  This is NOT a WP ad! There is no need to showcase an app or focus on OneNote’s integration in WP.
  
  Geez!
Anonymous

Maybe they wouldn’t have to trick him, if he would just answer his phone… 2 missed calls, 3 IMs, and 9 e-mails.
- Anonymous
  
  see how handy WP7 is…
Anonymous

MS is promoting the entire ecosystem and its makes a lot of sense.
- Joe_HTH
  
  Yes since WP7 is pretty much tanking, Mango has really did little to help us
- HeatherL
  
  I disagree, that fact to everyone I know putting MS or Window connection to the phone only hurts the phone sales most people like my friends thinks my WP7 phone is cool until I tell them its the new MSFT Window phone. It is a great OS but the fact is MS is not cool to any one under 40 years old.
Anonymous

the problem I have with this is the announcement at the end “it all starts with a windows 7 pc”. The commercial is funny and the situation is relatable for are many people. Everyone knows about windows 7. How about promoting your other less well know products. The wp7 phone is shown for a few seconds and many people seen’t familiar with it and won’t know what it is when they see it on the screen. In the end this commercial doesn’t promote the product that needs a lot of promotion.
Tuxplorer

Fantastic commercial. But does anyone know which Windows Phone device the guy is using? That’s the most beautiful smartphone device I have seen.
- Guest
  
  Looks like the Samsung Focus (possibly one of the newer gen)
- http://twitter.com/JoshMartin7 Josh Martin
  
  Correct I believe it’s the Samsung Focus S
Anonymous

I like this add, but I only hope that OneNote will work this instant one day.
- OMG55
  
  I actually performed tests from phone to cloud and cloud to phone.
  
  It took approximately 3-4 secs to sync from cloud-to-phone
  
  It was just as fast going from phone-to-cloud (all I had to do was click off of the grocery list and back on it via the sky drive portal and it sync’d changes I made on the phone to the cloud pretty quickly). So, in short, it’s almost instant. You will never something sync as fast as the blink of an eye….Get over it!
- Anonymous
  
  That’s not my experience, I usually have to refresh the note manually.
Nate

Loved the commercial because this is exactly how my wife uses her WP7. She even has the pinned “Grocery List” note on the start screen.
Bing-gle

Good Ad. I like it!
Kane Peterson

I like it because I do use OneNote on my phone for my shopping list. Now I need get my wife to understand how to update the list online.
Hookem

This is exactly how my wife and I use onenote with our windows phones. Kids are still too young to add the the list, but I can totally see them doing that.
http://twitter.com/JustEriksTwits Erik Oegema

I never understand the usefulness of OneNote at all. But now I do Pretty exciting program actually! And a really nice commercial!
Simplycani

..nice ad …
Anonymous

Why do they keep pushing Windows 7? Also they need to a separate ad for every damn feature they can! Saturate the airwaves like Apple does!
- Guest
  
  Um, because it’s the currently shipping product?
Owais_503

i love onenote. i started using onenote yestaday for my studying. i love it. onenote is awsome!
1Rahtid

This spot is noticeably better than the last two. At least I don’t feel the same level of embarrassment for Microsoft when watching it. But with that said, where’s that Ad that highlights the Windows Phone software, that demonstrate to consumers that WP has the apps they need on a phone, and is a beautiful alternative to Apple and Android? Something like the “Hello…” video. Nokia hasn’t made that Ad, none of the hardware manufacturers will, and MS certainly hasn’t as yet. At the end of the day, this current Ad doesn’t make me want to go out and buy a Windows 7 PC, it doesn’t make want to make WP my next phone, in fact it doesn’t make me want to go out and buy any Microsoft product. If this and was intended to keep the name Microsoft in the public’s face, and associate something positive with the name Microsoft, it likely succeeded. Otherwise, it is an EPIC FAIL in my book, especially in terms of promoting any of Microsoft product, or generating consumer desire of a product. If WP dies, it will, without doubt, be attributed to a failed Microsoft marketing effort. The tragedy will be that all of the Marketing geniuses responsible for the fail will never individually get credit for that disaster.
- john
  
  Can we stop using the word “epic” to exaggerate everything and anything? Thanks.
  
  As for this commercial, it did a great job highlighting the fact that there is some cool interoperability within the Microsoft ecosystem. The situation presented in the commercial was also something that most likely resonates with a certain casual demographic Microsoft is trying to reach.
- Sirruss579
  
  Your point being, that IF Windows phone fails… it wouldn’t be an epic fail, just a regular fail. OK. To each his own opinion. And, yes, continue dreaming, this commercial will drive the “casual demographic” to buy Microsoft products. Right.
Emi Cyberschreiber

this was cool and funny again!

the only one i didn’t like was the one about the dog and kid and powerpoint. it was like… silly and boring, and it wasn’t like… nice, like a boring story that was boring for a few minutes ad.
but the one about kinect, the couple getting married and specially this one are really good.

Id love to see one of this ads on tv.
Larry

So funny I like it but the really to spell it out better. If you don’t know about one note and sky drive this just goes over the head of most people.

Love one note but Evernote is better if use a mixture of MS and nonMS devices
Anonymous

My anti-tech girlfriend liked it! This is a good sign
It is also running in Germany btw.