Microsoft’s aggressive new Windows Phone ad approach: Bring It On

Microsoft is taking its ‘smoked by Windows Phone’ project to new mediums by baking its races into an ad, featuring its ever-present public face, Ben The PC Guy. That Ben is now part of the Windows Phone team aside, we want to know how his parents named him so presciently.

Here’s the gist: Microsoft has been challenging owners of Android and iOS handsets to races, in which daily tasks (think uploading a picture to Facebook) are ran, and the winner is the phone that completes the job the fastest. Sure, Microsoft picked the tests to show off Windows Phone’s brightest sides, but its win rate (88%) is high enough that its point is made.

At CES Microsoft shot a pile of footage, betting people $100 that they would lose to a Windows Phone handset. The clips did well, pulling in hundreds of thousands of views. And now, they are an ad. We love dorky Microsoft content, so how could we not post this? Check the clip and we’ll circle back afterwards:

Now, Microsoft didn’t fit the results into the clip, obviously in hopes of driving traffic to its social platforms. We think that it will work, mostly because Android handset owners are often quite proud of their hardware; this is likely why Microsoft put so many handset titles into the clip, to annoy the largest swath of the Android userbase that it could in 30 seconds.

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Our take: this is one of Microsoft’s best ideas yet, in regards to promoting Windows Phone. But we’re massive nerds, so take our view with a sharp shake of sea saline.