Microsoft Tells Its impolite IE8 Campaign To “Get Lost”
June 19, 2009 ·Filed Under Technology News
For the past few days, we’ve been digging in pretty deep against Microsoft for its odd way it’s trying to push IE8 online. And we were hardly the only ones. Apparently, Microsoft was listening.
Today, it has changed the worst of those campaigns, the “Ten Grand Is Buried Here” one, to remove the restriction that mandatory you use IE8 to have a chance to win the money. Previously, there were 4 rules for the promotion, but Microsoft cut those in half, removing the ones that told you to get rid of your current browser and download IE8. More importantly, it removed the language that told users to “get lost” whether they were using anything besides IE, and implying they were idiots for using any other browser.
The Microsoft blog I Started Something tries to spin that as Microsoft just making changes to produce more clear what it always intended for the campaign, saying that “get lost” was meant to be “get lost in the hunt” (both have since been removed from the site), and saying that, “The “it’s not as silly as it sounds” text in the footer was always in context of the “tell a friend”
Yeah, whatever.
From what I’m hearing, Microsoft was not happy at all with Australian team for that campaign (the MSFT Aussies made it) and made the moves to exact it. Now anyone, using any browser, has a shot at the money.
Smart move, though I’m not certain it will fulfill the original intention: To get more humans to use IE8. But they’re still trying. The key line says, “How will you know whether you’ve found it [the money]? It’s a cleverly concealed webpage you can view on World Wide Web Explorer 8.” “Can” is the keyword there, you don’t need to use IE8, but you can, to view it.
I think I will use Safari or Firefox to look for the money.
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