Promoting your products via advertisements of various kinds has been the mode of publicity for ages. Some brand rivalries were obvious though still discreet enough to be not too overt so as to attract problems. This one from Microsoft has definitely crossed the lines.

In what appears to be a wedding ceremony, the visitors take out their smartphones and tablets to capture the best moment of the couple's lives when one Apple user is enraged by the very large “Samsung Galaxy Note II” asking him to move so he can take his shot too. This leads into a fight that turns physical.

While the business gets dirty, the waiter and waitress who weild a Nokia Lumia 920 have a dialogue, "Do you think that if they knew about the Nokia Lumia, they'd stop fighting all the time?" the waiter asks to which the lady replies, "I don't know, I kind of think, they like fighting".

While the advertisement clearly is about the flagship Nokia Lumia 920, the real deal gets the least screentime. The negative sense of publicity in the advertisement is too high. While they show no real way that their phone is better than either Samsung or Apple they only urge the users to switch to Nokia.  There is no reason to explain why this would commercial work to improve sales.

Earlier too Microsoft has tried to quash Google and glorify bing with their campaign Scroogle. It has failed abysmally back then and this attempt could not fare any better.

Take a look and make a call for yourself!

(AW- Anil)