Marketing Monday #1: What will Santa Bring This Year?
Welcome to the freshest content on studio469. Marketing Monday is here to present you with provoking and innovative design and marketing trends. Furthermore Marketing Monday will review some business events. Marketing Monday is brought to you by our newest addition to the studio469 panel, Martijn Jegerings.
So let’s start right off with Microsoft’s new born, the Zune Media Player. Last week Microsoft introduced the Zune Media Player in the U.S. as a response to Apples success story, the iPod. Although Microsoft officials already declare at the launch, that they don’t expect the Zune to attack or even come close to the iPods’ leader position, we suggest it would be a fairytale if Microsoft ain’t keen on breaking into Apples hegemony on the media player market.
Zune’s market entering timing is simply good. November is the month to start thinking about Christmas presents. You might even suggest Microsoft’s’ idea is to launch an almost identical product to the iPod just before Christmas to compete with Apple when Santa arrives. This suggestion can be supported by the fact that the Zune doesn’t have any surprising attributes and/or innovating features. Although Microsoft will not agree on this statement, because they seem to be very proud of the wireless file sharing feature, unfortunately that’s not new. Philips already introduced it 2 years ago. Therefore I’m just wondering where on earth Microsoft wants to compete on with the iPod? Because they won’t compete on price, because both are equal ($249,-). They won’t compete on attributes, because as stated before Microsoft didn’t add any value creating attributes to the Zune. As well as they won’t compete on image or design, because they simply can’t come near to the iPod. The only thing they can compete on is on color. Yes Microsoft bets on the expressive color brown. Well you can say everything about the color brown, but you can’t say it ain’t a reliable color.
Then there is the Zune Market Place. What a brilliant name!!! And what a brilliant copy of the iTunes Store, however you cannot download or subscribe to podcasts and before you can download one song you’ll first have to buy points that enable you to buy 10. Yes Microsoft is getting the hang of it. This strategy would very well work for the iTunes, but only builds customer entry barriers for a new product. Ow yeah, I almost forgot that Microsoft included their own version of the loved DRM. Brilliant, because who listens to illegal MP3’s these days?
To me, the introduction of the Zune shows Microsoft’s’ weakness. While being number one on the market software for years might have blinded their eyes. Today’s competitors have been able to simply and successfully start attacking Microsoft’s’ unique position. This leaves me with just wondering if Microsoft knows that a failure of the Zune could heavily damage their former superior image.
Zunes’ introduction can only mean two things. To start positively, it could be brilliant. What? Yes, brilliant!!! Microsoft is throwing snow in everybody’s eyes by launching a product that’s far from capable to achieve market leadership. However they keep their winning cards at hand. Simply waiting for Apple to introduce the new generation of iPods, and then, just when Apple introduced their new generation, Microsoft stands up and blows away everyone, from Oprah Winfrey to Steven Jobs, when supplying us with the best designed media player. That even comes with the most valuable attributes leaving the iPod as an early Millennium toy. However if this is not the case, we might be witnessing the end of the Bill Gates imperial. If the Zunes’ standard is an equivalent of Microsoft’s’ new standard it could turn out to be disastrous to the brand.
Personally I can’t wait to receive my first Zune and join internet communities to share common ‘windows’ errors that occur on my Zune, like: “Unfortunately Zune has found an unexpected system error. Please try to restart the Zune or contact your manufacturer.â€
Hopefully the internet communities find the secret Ctrl, Alt + Del buttons to get into the taskforce of the Zune and solve the Not Responding Music Player. You might laugh but Microsoft is really prepared for such problems. Very well prepared we might even say. Because error solving seems to be Microsoft’s response to the sexy iPod image. (click to here to see Microsofts definition of sexy) So who dares to say Microsoft ain’t sexy?
This year Santa will decide on Microsoft’s future. This leaves me with only one little advice to Bill&Co: “Santa and his red nosed rain dear seem to be slightly price sensitive when it comes to equal products. If price is equal they’ll probably use their sense for design. Ho Ho Ho” So what do you think? Are we witnessing Microsoft’s breakdown or is the Zune the top of an iceberg that represents Microsoft’s comeback?
P.S. 1 : Mr. Gates, I heard Santa’s least preferred color is brown.
P.S. 2 : Does anyone know the Hebrew translation to the word Zune? Anyone? Well at least no-one did at Microsoft, although I hope so, because the Zune perfectly spells f u c k. Yes fuck.
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November 20th, 2006 at 14:08
i agree the zune is definitely not a competitor to the ipod but i disagree when it comes to the tip-of-the-iceberg thing…it is a fact microsoft has got some tricks up their sleeves and are already working on more zune follow-ups. however, so is apple. just wait until they unveil the true video ipod.
if microsoft wants to compete in any way they should work on the most important features such as battery life, size and design [anyone can attach a new cover to a toshiba gigabeat...]. and why use a weird feature such as sharing songs via a wireless link? if you want to invade the personal spave of chicks you should use the freakin’ headphones, that’ll get you so much closer…
i think they will get it right one day…wether by own design, copying other companies or just using any of the existing players. but on the other hand i do hope everything goes wrong, the market-share of microsoft will plummet and they will lose their lonely-at-the-top-position to apple. cause they already got it right and only get better [apple-fan-boy here, beware!].
i will not leave microsoft burning in hell all the way though, props for the packaging design, it looks better than the ipod-counterparts.
welcome to the club martijn! and that you may write more nice columns…and don’t worry about designers hating you…that’s just normal….you’re a marketeer…
November 20th, 2006 at 18:50
hey jan, thanks for your comment on the column. if you ask me microsoft is currently suffering to the, as i call it, philips syndrom. they are adding features which are cool inside the R&D offices. however, the the mass will not eat them. philips has been suffering from this disease for years. they only just ended this period by introducing their sense and simplicity vision. (and a bunch of marketeers who participate in R&D
)
i’m just curious about how it all will work out for microsoft. what do you think about vista? will vista succeed?
November 20th, 2006 at 21:44
philips syndrom, sigh. that whole sense and simplicity thing did not really work out for me. but i have to be careful what i say, our entire faculty is actualy run by philips as their cheap research and design facility.
vista…hmm….when it comes out it will be an instant succes because of the huge adoption rate because 95% of all computer run windows. i guess it will still be buggy though…
not to be the apple fanboy too much but one of vista’s features is a new stunning theme which will be more visasully attractive. macosx already runs with a more visually oriented interface theme called “aqua”. microsoft tried to copy such a style but they was not really succeeding on that front. one of their earlier versions of vista took 1gb of ram just to run in idle mode….that’s what all the “windows-vista-capable-stickers” were all about. they did improve this and it will be running fine by now, but you will still need a decent computer to use most of its features.
which brings me to the versions…why the hell create so many versions of one os? on its development phase they created 11 versions which are currently narrowed down to 6 if i’m correct. make things less complicated and just create 1 version for everybody.
with al the improvements in interface, style, directx and overall performance i don’t see why it should be a flop.
November 20th, 2006 at 21:49
okay normally i don’t do plugs but after typing that comment i found myself to this golden oldy:
http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/windows-vistas-worst-performer-windows-vista-156415.php
that’s basically sums things up for ya there…
November 21st, 2006 at 7:52
Nice column, I agree, I agree, I agree.. with the marketeer, hmm there must be something to disagree on. Perhaps its the part about this first Zune being poorly designed and not innovative enough, remember the first iPod that sucked too didn’t it? oh no it did not… shit there goes my point.
Well there is one thing bothering me, and that is the fact that Microsoft has the money, the network and the time to do this right, and still i’m just not impressed by this product, too bad… same goes for Vista, how long have they been working on that..? and still they dont get it right..
November 21st, 2006 at 10:07
Yes Microsoft has got the budget, but I also think this same budget is the problem at Microsoft. Because when Microsoft got successful, they decided to sell their stocks. Which is financially very lucrative and had to be done, because as a growing firm you’re in need of this money. However nowadays these same stockholders that allowed Microsoft to grow are now the ones who are turning down Microsoft innovativeness. Microsoft is ruled by stockholders and these stockholders only want one thing… value for their money… and not in 10 years, not NOW. Every investment should bring minimal risk and should pay off. If you as a manager fail to the stockholders perceptions you’ll probably have to go and find a new job.
Therefore these days are the hardest for companies like Microsoft. Because you should remember that Apple also had their bad years. (Before mr. Jobs returned) Only after their temporary break down, their stockholders knew that is was important for Apple to have a vision.. which will pay off tremendously in the future.
Microsoft is now in a position it just doesn’t want to fail. With as a result gives them products like the Zune (and/or Vista?!?). Because you can’t tell me Microsofts people can’t do better, they’re are just trapped in a world where you’re not supposed to fail. A world that will destroy creativity.
Maybe I should change the title of this column into “What will the stockholders bring this year”.
November 22nd, 2006 at 22:27
Do you think that the kids that get this player over Xmas, sync it, lose the pre-loaded MP3s only to find that Microsoft will only let you have the pre-loaded songs back at $15 dollars are going to like this player? Don’t you think that some parents are going to be saying, “Well Johny and Sally, let me call Zune support and see if they can help me fix your new Zune” or do you think they’ll just take it back since it has a problem only days after getting it out of the box. Then if they -do- happen to call tech support and learn that this is as designed… What then?
I bought a Zune the day it came out from Target, called tech support the following weekend. After dealing with them for 2 days, getting some mis-information, calling back, etc. I have no solution. I check out Zuneinsider.com to find out that there is a playlist available for the pre-loaded songs on the Marketplace. Great, so I can get the songs back? No, not unless I spend another $15 with Microsoft.
Bleh. Its going back to the store. I’m buying an iPod and a CD with music I currently want to listen to. F*** exploring new bands through the Marketplace. I’ll just head to emusic.com/movies and get -50- free MP3s that I can use on any player (unlike Zune Marketplace and the pre-loaded content that can -not- even be backed up to your hard drive with a brand new Zune if the Zune decides to eat and delete your pre-loaded songs).
November 23rd, 2006 at 13:52
hallelujah brother! amen!
November 23rd, 2006 at 14:26
Hey Scott, I can totally understand where you’re coming from. It’s just another one of Microsoft’s little software jokes.
But if you think about it carefully, you’ll see that Apple and Microsoft have the same strategy on this. If Apple preloaded the iPod with songs, they would be erased upon the first connection because of the synchronization. Of course you can prevent this by managing the iPod manually, but you still won’t get the songs on your pc.
So the mistake in my opinion is not that Microsoft programmed it’s software this way, but that they made the decision to preload the songs. Because of all the DRM madness going on, Microsoft just followed the trend, but they should have thought about this before releasing the product. I think it just adds to the list of products that got released before it was quite ready.
November 23rd, 2006 at 17:45
Yeah Scotty I have to agree upon this with Guus, I also think its because of the DRM strategies. However if I were Bill Gates, I would not be proud of such a stupid mistake in software. It’s like giving a kid a candy bar and take it back after he’s got one bit. I can tell you… This kid will be very disappointed.
November 23rd, 2006 at 17:49
Is Microsoft really not able to improve the I-pod? Is this all they can offer? This column opened my eyes regarding this company I thought to be superior on every aspect… Think I will postpone my christmas X-box 360…
November 23rd, 2006 at 18:22
there is nothing wrong with the 360 [well, at least not a lot]. not being able to stun everyone with your first generation product in a market which already has so much diversity and innovation is not a thing to cry about. the 360 is a good choice for your bucks [though the wii and ps3 are also both a good bang for your bucks]. don’t judge an entire company on one product.
it’s not like i completely hate microsoft because they made the ever-shitty windows……..[moment of reflection]………wait! i’m just bullshitting, i do hate micorosoft! and that’s not because of one thing….but because of all the windows versions….
November 24th, 2006 at 2:32
Ok, this is a little off-topic, but I don’t care…
I’ve seen the X360 quite a lot of times over here, and I really like it. The controllers feel nice, the thing looks twice as good as the original xbox, and the graphics… oh man, don’t get me started. I’ve seen gears of war, and it’s just amazing.
But like always with Microsoft, it was released too soon. Everyone heard about the bugs when it was first released, but ok, that happens to everyone. After they got it fixed, they served the Fall Update. Well the quick downloaders had a fall update allright, like their x360 had fallen to it’s death, so again scratch one for Microsoft…
I actually know about 3 people who own an x360 of which 2 of them are currently in repair for unknown reasons. I think the x360 concept is great, but they should have prolonged the final development phase…
December 18th, 2006 at 13:09
[...] So designers, tell me, what do you think? Should virtual worlds like Second Life run on pure emotion? Do you think this will last? Or do we need a sprank of rationality/morality/authority to make it ‘the Promised Land’? Why could we live our virtual lifes without these factors and would our real world be screwed without it? What should be the the balance between rationality vs. emotion…. 5% vs 95% or 25% vs 75% or 80% vs 20%? To give you some inspiration I ask you to keep in mind Marketing Monday #1 and watch this over-rational movie. [...]
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:52
[...] P.S.1 Studio469 can not be held responsible for addictional behavior. P.S.2 For the ones who have read Marketing Monday #1, just re-read the story above and take in mind that Bill’s last name is Gates and the I-person is also known as Steve Jobs. This round symbolizes media devices, like the Zune and the iPod/iPhone. [...]