[Am-info] Dishonesty in ads]

[John J. Urbaniak]

Well, it's hard to believe that the "Dell Dude" is focussed on business
rather than the consumer, yet we see similar glorification of dishonesty
in the Dell ads.

Also, not all American companies are greedy and dishonest.

John


Mike Stephen wrote:

> It might be time to remind people that although the courts are
> focused on what they term Microsoft consumers as the
> marketplace that Microsoft caters to, it is not.  For a long
> time now Microsoft has not been interested enough to market to
> the consumer.  They are focused on the corporate and reseller
> marketplace.
>
> They focus the adverts on the small business person interested
> in selling to the consumer. This has been apparent now for the
> past 4 years. Microsoft ads reflect the advantages of using
> .net for example as a small business tool to help adjust
> prices faster.  This ad (the broken wine bottles) was never
> aimed at the consumer, but rather at the small business owner.
> The actual consumer marketplace is really not worth
> advertising towards.  Microsoft won that war.  Now they are
> after the clients of IBM, Oracle, Accpac, SAP, and many others
> who thought they were safe.....
>
> I have not seen a consumer based ad since the XP rollout,
> where it appears if you touch a Windows XP keyboard, you are
> able to magically start to fly......
>
> > > So are you saying that Microsoft actually would recommend
> that a sales
> > > clerk deliberately destroy the customer's wine bottle just
> so they can rip
> > > him off by charging an updated (presumably higher) price
> for a new one?
> > > This is one of the "benefits" of .NET?
>
> It appears Microsoft assumes all business would act as the ad
> suggests.  Market shortages make the price fluctuate.
> Microsoft refects this style of business.  Not that there is
> anything legally wrong with the market driven capitalist
> market, it sometimes has a slightly distasteful appearance.
> Microsoft in my mind has always skirted the law and is mostly
> distasteful in almost everything it does.
>
> However on the other hand, Microsoft is really only reflecting
> the similar policy of the USA.  America always pushes hard in
> the world to maintain its economic power.  Almost all US
> foreign policy can be linked to greed, power, resources,
> vengeance, and maintenance of power.
>
> If America feels it is losing a market, they simply put duties
> and taxes to make the local USA products unfairly competative
> to better cheaper foreign products.  Very few times in the
> history of the USA has anything been done regarding foreign
> policy that has been remotely related to "freedom" and other
> more airy fairy uphemisms.
>
> As for advertising in North America.....   Nowhere in the
> world has advertising been more effective that in the USA.
> The population of the USA can very easily be made to do the
> powers that be's bidding.  Americans as a whole are the
> easiest to affect via propaganda.  CNN and the other US
> networks are very effective at manipulating the average
> American.
>
> All this means is that Microsoft is only doing what has been
> done in the USA administration for the past 200 years!  If you
> want to chastize Microsoft, take a long hard look at accepted
> business dealings of the USA administration regarding world
> business tactics.
>
> Its kinda hard to chastise Microsft in a heavy handed manner
> when the USA administration go far beyond Microsoft's actions.