By Flora Haslam
If you've seen any tech news in the last week, you've almost certainly heard about Windows 7. And here in the UK, the stories you've read will probably have featured Microsoft's video encouraging you to host your own launch party. In fairness, I haven't seen the whole thing... it was so spectacularly bad that I couldn't take any more after the first few cringe worthy minutes so it's possible that it turns into a stroke of cinematic genius around the 5 minute, 47 second mark. Then again, if previous attempts are anything to go by, possibly not.
I'd be the first to encourage the companies we represent to embrace video - you can't argue that it's a radical improvement to static text-heavy websites - so I'm reluctant to dismiss Microsoft's attempts. Unfortunately, I think this one just doesn't work. Maybe it'll be better received in the States? Maybe it was always intended as a spoof? Maybe it served its purpose in signing up techies to host their own balloon-clad bashes and spread the word in exchange for a free OS? Maybe the mere fact that we're talking about it makes it a viral marketing triumph?
But, for me, the fact that comments have had to be disabled on YouTube makes its success more than a little questionable as a social media campaign.
On the plus side, we can surely all learn from this: video is great, but as with all PR, never underestimate your audience. All publicity is not necessarily good publicity and there's a danger that your target market will be distracted from the good stuff by the general noise. Even if your video's not intended for consumption by the general public, you can't afford to ignore its impact when - inevitably - it does hit YouTube.
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