Microsoft: Graffiti artists wanted for Windows 8 digital ads
Summary: At Advertising Week 2012, Microsoft will be talking up the ad potential of Windows 8 and Skype.
It's Advertising Week 2012 in New York the week of October 1. Given the countdown is on to the Windows 8 launch on October 25, it's not too surprising the Softies will be attending this event in force and talking up Windows 8 as an advertiser's dream.
Microsoft has been strategically placing graffiti-inspired Surface tablet ads on walls in various cities around the U.S. for the past few weeks. It looks like Microsoft plans to carry over the graffiti theme to the digital advertising side with Windows 8, as well, according to the Microsoft Advertising page for Advertising week.
"With the advent of Windows 8, Microsoft introduces a new advertising canvas. We are kicking the old way of digital advertising to the curb with something fresh, modern, and revolutionary. And we are looking for digital graffiti artists."
The Softies are also promising attendees of its Advertising Week activities a "sneak preview of the 'never been done before' engagement opportunities for brands to connect with consumers through Windows 8." Microsoft made the Microsoft Advertising software development kit (SDK) for Windows 8 generally available earlier this week. This is what will allow advertisers to take advantage of "Windows 8 Ads in Apps," according to a Microsoft blog post.
There's another Microsoft Advertising session slated for next week on how marketers can get their ads in Skype -- something Microsoft began rolling out (in the form of conversation ads on Skype Audio) earlier this year. Big data's importance in advertising will be another emphasis from the Microsoft team next week, as well.
Meanwhile -- from the "you learn something new every day" department -- I just found out that Qi Lu, President of Microsoft's Online Services Division -- home of Bing, MSN and Microsoft's online advertising -- has been head of the company's Global Foundation Services for about a year.
I noticed the addition of Global Foundation Services (GFS) to Lu's list of responsibilities via a new bio for him the site for adWeek 2012, which kicks off next week (October 1). Lu's bio on Microsoft's own Web site makes no mention of him overseeing GFS.
Lu's bio on the Advertising Week page reads:
"Dr. Qi Lu is the president of Microsoft's Online Services Division and leads Microsoft's online efforts, across search (Bing), portal (MSN), mobile, and the broader advertising platforms and services. In addition, he oversees the Global Foundation Services organization, which is Microsoft's global infrastructure, networking, and data center operations."
I asked Microsoft when Lu picked up responsibilites for GFS and was told this happened a year ago.
In 2011, Microsoft lost Kevin Timmons, who helped build the GFS datacenters, to CyrusOne (via a brief dalliance with Apple). Lu was made head of GFS while Timmons was still at Microsoft.
GFS is the unit charged with powering Microsoft's cloud services. All of them -- Xbox Live, Windows Azure, Windows Live, Office 365, MSN, Zune, Hotmail/Outlook.com, and Microsoft's own internal datacenters, too. In other words, GFS runs Microsoft's worldwide network of datacenters.
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Talkback
no win8 advertising
The article says "Windows 8 Ads in Apps".....
deathjazz68 did they call Loverock Davidson...you know he's full
Too late
For example in the weather app: http://twitpic.com/axsgq1/full
I am not a talented artist
iYawn.
Kudos to Microsoft for showing the world how it can be done better.
Ha
the hard part is being first with something good, something MS has never been able to do.
After they sat there and watched in denial for years and then came up with the only design left they could think of, mandated by an apple agreement.
Apple has more than squares its detailed icons. Metro is the one with mostly single colored squares and, ok, rectangles, I'll give you that.
Why be the first?
And you obviously have no fucking idea what you are talking about because the Metro design is not from default of Apple. The had been introducing in previous products like Windows Media and Zune, not to mention that the whole design principal is based on Swiss design which is BEFORE apple and is very high level simple/clean design.
Apple's icons are one of the past. They are simply app identifiers. They don't show any recent information about the app. You can't change their size, etc.
Apple wasn't the first to create a grid of icons. So how is Apple first in that respect?
Maybe if you stopped following your iMaps, your brain wouldn't be so lost in confusion.
So just because
Troll Hunter J that is a plausiable statement
You can sell a whole bunch of advertising if your in a persons face on any type gaget he owns (Tablets,pnone,PC, laptop etc) its so wonderfull to think that ALL trusted companies like Microsoft see into every aspect of your thinking ........ you have to wonder how long it will take "big brother" to start monitoring your throne habbits.
Why be first?
Application icons are supposed to be visual representations of VERBS, so a printer icon should show an image of a document being printed.
Metro's approach - essentially a lurid rectangle with text saying something like "Print document," is a step backward, towards something slightly worse than a command line interface: command line interfaces can be extremely elegant and can facilitate scripting, but their Verbs are not easily recognised or remembered; Metro text boxes don't help with scripting and they're no help when it comes to visual recognition of the Verb that you want. (On the home screen, some Metro icons include simple silhouettes, but these aren't shown in list views.)
"Apple's icons are one of the past. They are simply app identifiers. They don't show any recent information about the app."
App icons should not change, because Verbs don't change. This is why Apple were right to keep App icons static, and why Apple's App icons are not passé.
In contrast, Apple document icons represent NOUNS, and Nouns do change. An Apple Noun/Document icon is an image between 16x16 pixels to 512x512 pixels of the text/Spreadsheet/PDF/photo/video document; this allows the document contents can be instantly recognised from the icon. Icons of films can be clicked and the film will play in the icon. Similarly, audio icons will play when clicked.
In short, Apple icons fit a carefully designed visual language - not a "grid of rectangles" - whereas MS's icons fit no systematic visual language that I can see.
Metro rectangles are confused: an Application icon should not contain data about temperatures, etc., because this information does not represent information about the Verb associated with the icon.
"Apple wasn't the first to create a grid of icons. So how is Apple first in that respect?"
Is this the usual, tedious Microsoftie claim that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs saw the Xerox Parc Star GUI in the late 1970s?
If so, how did Jobs have a fully working Mac, designed on object oriented principles, Apple's own OO programming language (Object Pascal, designed with Nicolas Wirth) and Adobe's OO display language (postscript) just 5-6 years after the Xerox Parc demonstration, while Microsoft didn't have anything comparable for 16-17 years after the same demonstration?
Apple was first in applying the Windows-Icons-Pointer paradigm to home computers, that cost an order of magnitude less than PARC's $20-30k business workstations. (I.m not sure that Xerox even put the Star into production.) Windows took 11 years longer.
Look well, bro (or sister)
If you look well at those lurid rectangles, I am sure you will find icons there, since they mean so much to you. Do you realize tiles are basically icons resting on rectangles? Do you realize tiles are like a combination of icons and real-time info?
Do you realize that Microsoft simply beat your beloved Apple to the idea of combining icons with live updates? I look at my phone (Windows Phone) and I see a telephone receiver - an icon! - on one of the tiles on my home screen, same idea with my laptop - Windows 8 Release Preview - so what are you talking about?
"Metro text boxes don't help with scripting and they're no help when it comes to visual recognition of the Verb that you want."
Dude, what visual recognition do you need? You are beginning to sound like consultants that take up a fairly simple concept and then make it sound complicated to earn their pay.
"Metro rectangles are confused: an Application icon should not contain data about temperatures, etc., because this information does not represent information about the Verb associated with the icon."
Next thing you are going to say is a Facebook app does not need to show number of updates or notification. And where did you get this idea of verbs from? How do verbs bother a normal phone user? You will probably say it is the way industrial design of icons or interfaces go but what if Microsoft decides to create their own or completely new design standards? Ever heard of revolution or innovation or new approach?
"(On the home screen, some Metro icons include simple silhouettes, but these aren't shown in list views.)"
That sounds like coming from a person that's not used a windows phone or windows 8 OS. I invite you come check out my phone and laptop when you have the time to spare and see how wrong you are.
Look weller..
A Facebook App does *not* "need" info like the number of updates and notifications should go in a notification manager, not on an App. You *can* put this sort of data on tiles/icons, but it doesn't really make (visual) grammatical sense,
"And where did you get this idea of verbs from?"
From the very first designers who wrote books about GUIs in the 1980s. This sort of thing was once considered carefully, so that users would be presented with a consistent, graphical-linguistic interface that was trivial to learn.
"How do verbs bother a normal phone user? You will probably say it is the way industrial design of icons or interfaces go but what if Microsoft decides to create their own or completely new design standards?"
If Microsoft have designed a new, coherent design then where are the design documents? Developers, at very least, should have had these in their hands for ages, yet I haven't seen them.
Metro looks more like an engineers hack, rather than something that began with consistent, rational principles and then was engineered to meet the specs.
You still need these:
2) Gradients to simulate a sheen on a curved surface
Thoughts
I wonder what a "grafitti" themed ad looks like. Don't say it looks like grafitti. I wonder if this SDK and the related creation of ads will spawn a new profession?
Graffiti for Windows 8?
Metro
So Microsoft is now Tagging.... ;)
windows 8
A wannabe advertising company
Translation: our previous attempts failed (but hey, we are here for the long run) so we are bringing here W8. W8 is like fairy dust; it will:
- bring back MS to a dominant position in mobile
- create a new paradigm in UI
- merge the 3 screens, one OS
- become a player in BYOD
- derail Google advertising platform.
in the meantime, a few weeks away from launch, thousands of people are expressing their dislike of Windows 8. And hundreds of paid shills aggressively deny that paid shills exists.
It will be fun to watch. I will throw an Adornoe, here my prediction:
It will be a Vista reload. we see the same path. Aggressively people denying that anything is wrong. There is a momentum that must be build. Paramount is to neutralize any negative comment about W8.
Unfortuntely