Institute for Advanced Personhood
January 30, 2007 Musings, Reviews No Comments |
The new Microsoft Vista ad campaign is out, and it’s…..weird. The story involves Demetri Martin, a comic, who shot a Comedy Central special, which ran last night (and two weeks ago), and was entirely underwritten by Microsoft. The company used their ad space to run a series of shorts about the IAP, or Institute for Advanced Personhood, a mythical and somewhat silly organization dedicated to eliminating clutter from people’s lives. Vista itself is never mentioned, although it’s used to give some presentations and is constantly displayed on all computer screens within the ‘Institute.’
Visiting the IAP’s website, at theiap.org, lets you view additional footage, including the story of Martin’s visit to the IAP, and his subsequent treatment, etc. The whole thing is a viewing experience that could waste up to an hour of your time, and is actually quite funny (as was Martin’s special on Comedy Central last night). Furthermore, this is evidence of what promises to be a truly massive advertising campaign by Microsoft to get the word out about Vista through unconventional means. After watching a series of annoying Mac commercials featuring a snooty preppy making snide off-hand comments about PCs running Windows, it’s nice to see the corporate giant flexing its financial muscle to once again re-crush the indy into submission. I never thought I’d say that, but I’ve really come to hate the Mac guy.
For additional info, check out this link on digg.com.