Microsoft Goofs on Code7 Tie-ins
Guest blogger David Ramel discovers 7 blunders by Microsoft's marketing team.
Is the Microsoft marketing department slipping?
Take a look at the Code 7 contest for programmers developing Windows 7 applications.
So far, so good – the name definitely ties into Windows 7.
But a $17,777 grand prize? Where did that come from? I guess the economic calamity is even hitting Redmond – it obviously should have been $77,777. Or even $70,000. Or even $7,000. But $17,777?
Memo to Microsoft: it’s Windows 7, not Windows 17.
And why 6 Windows 7 application scenarios, instead of 7? And 5 target Windows 7 technologies, instead of 7?
Come on, this is Marketing 101 stuff – low hanging fruit.
They got the 7 finalists right (but it was kind of humorous to see how they struggled to come up with 7 geographical regions – take a look at what they came up with here.
But they mandated 3-minute explanatory videos of the entries. Why not let the coders explore their creativity and produce 7-minute videos?
And the grand prize winner should have been able to meet with 7 members of the Win7 dev team, and gotten to stay in Redmond for 7 days.
Of course, the gallery of submitted apps should have consisted of 7 pages, or better yet 77 pages of 7 entries each.
Notice that I listed 7 blunders. See how easy this is, Microsoft?
The opportunities for 7 tie-ins simply abound. That sentence I just wrote was 7 words long. Somebody stop me.
OK, express your 7 notions of what they missed below or drop me a line. The lucky winner – chosen by me – will receive a $7 cash prize. Or maybe 7 winners will receive $1 each.
I know, $1 instead of $7 contradicts everything I just wrote.
Times are tough, you know.
David Ramel is Features Editor for MSDN Magazine. He can be reached at dramel@1105media.com.
Posted by David Ramel on 10/23/2009