Microsoft’s “Project Natal”, a sneak peek into your future…

I don’t know about you but I had a tiny orgasm when I saw the video.

I guess there’s no huge surprise regarding the technology; these big players don’t let any delicate information leak out anyway. You can be certain all their competitors can do the same tricks, (though maybe not consolidated in the same way).

However, moving first in communicating about it might actually earn Microsoft a few points in terms of consumer perception.

First thing to note, on a purely marketing aspect, you’ll realize Microsoft has learned a few things from Nintendo, notably the size of the “occasional gamer” target market. The familial, fun dimension takes way over the revolutionary graphics and hi-tech (geeky) positioning, widely dominant in their previous marketing operations.

But beyond the brand, the technology and the sales technique, it’s really more the application that gives a sort of sneak peek into your life in 5 (2?) years. The voice and face recognition, combined with the camera, scanner and internet connection simply turn your own body into a remote controller. Think of how you’ll figure out the weather before you leave your house in the morning (just yell “weather” while you’re taking a piss), it might even reply by proposing a selection of outfits from your closet, depending on rain or lack of it.

If you think about it, just take all currently available Iphone apps, stick‘em on a huge flat screen and add voice and face recognition: gives a pretty clear image of the amount of information that’ll be available to you by the simple movement of your vocal chords.

Now you can’t help but think of the huge changes this will bring to Commerce (with a big C), all kinds of it. Be it customer experience and behavior, brand communication, experiential marketing or brand partnerships (the skateboard example is pretty revealing).

I guess this is revolutionary on many aspects. Personnally, i have a fixation on the way information or “knowledge” if you prefer, is becoming increasingly available in ever so simpler ways, increasingly turning organic, becoming a sort of 6th sense

Microsoft moving ahead of Apple in Mac V/S PC battle

In the ever-ending battle between the two manufacturers, it seems Microsoft’s last campaign “laptop hunters” has found attentive reception and long-lasting impact in the minds of consumers. The campaign basically positions Macs as too pricy, and features average 18-30 year-old people who would really like to find all they want in a laptop for less than a 1000$.

The study comes from Brandindex and concerns value perception of both brands concerning laptops. The graph is pretty self-explanatory:

Many factors play in favor of the campaign here.

First, it is mostly targeted at young adults, who typically have less disposable income than their older counterparts.

Second, with the whole economic situation, even higher-income consumers might tend to look for “value” rather than image.

Facing these circumstances, Apple’s strategy of agressing Microsoft by making it “defensive, old, complicated to use and unhip” doesn’t seem to be very rewarding.

On a scale from -100 to 100 (a score of zero means that people are giving equal amounts of positive and negative feedback about a brand), Apple fell from a score of 70 a few months ago, to 12.4 while Microsoft moved from nearly zero to 46.2.

These wide movements in brand perception are rather unusual in such a short period of time, and, according to brandindex are, in major part linked to the impact of the campaign in consumers’ minds.

The battle is far from over folks  😉