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Who's on that banner?

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For whatever reason, various groups at Microsoft love to run banners and posters that promote their products on campus.  I'm not sure why they do it, I'd think that their money would be better spent advertising to (say) customers as opposed to advertising to co-workers, but hey, I don't control their budget.

Recently there's been a relatively cryptic series of banners circulating near my building that originally was a series of pictures of the back of people's heads, and recently changed to a series of faces (all with no text).

Yesterday I was on a shuttle with one of the PMs in my group and the conversation went something like this:

PM: Do you have any idea what those banners are advertising?

Me: Yeah, I figured it out a couple of weeks ago on my walk. They're Microsoft Advertising.

PM: I know it's Microsoft advertising, it's blindingly obvious that they're advertising something.

Me: No, it's Microsoft Advertising.

PM (somewhat exasperated): I know it's advertising.  I'm just trying to figure out what they're advertising.

Me: Microsoft Advertising.

PM: If you don't know, then why did you tell me you knew what they were?

 

Bud and Lou would be proud.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2008
    Only marketing people would think advertising that is impossible to figure out is "clever". After all, it "gets people talking"... I guess that's how you knew it was Microsoft Advertising.

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2008
    Actually I knew because I'd seen the ONE banner that pointed you to: http://advertising.microsoft.com/coa which is the site for the Microsoft Advertising's "Center of Attention" campaign. If you happen to enter our part of the MSFT campus from the right direction, you'll see that banner (if you're looking really carefully, since it's pointed in a way that makes it almost invisible from the driveway).   It just happens that on one of the routes that I take for my morning walk I run into the banner.

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2008
    Interesting - I saw the same banners and pamphlets in the cafeteria. But one of them had the URL on the back

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2008
    the same old debate of pointer versus values? good luck explaining that to a non programmer. most of programmers I know didn't understand that.

  • Anonymous
    June 11, 2008
    Glad to see that my favorite political organizations aren't the only ones who spend absurd amounts of time and money preaching to the choir!  ;-)

  • Anonymous
    June 11, 2008
    Just wondering.... Wouldn't it be nice if we could hyperlink words while talking!!  (that way it could have helped PM understand what you are talking about, and you may not have to repeat it!!)

  • Anonymous
    June 12, 2008
    The full phrase "it's microsoft advertising promoting themselves" would have eliminated the confusion. Of course, a smarter PM would have realised by the second time round that the phrase "microsoft advertising" was the answer to the question. I just hope it was a lack of coffee that morning rather than a sign that he'ld think ressurecting Microsoft Bob would be a good project to manage.   ;) (Also, Microsoft employees may be "the choir" but they still need to know about all the songbooks being put out. Sometimes, assuming that belonging to an organisation implies a direct telepathic link to the supreme overlord of the organisation is actually incorrect.)

  • Anonymous
    July 11, 2008
    The Abbot and Costello skit was hilarious! I almost fell out of my seat laughing!