[markcmyers]

As a former advertising executive, I can tell you what the problem is here. The writer and his boss who approved the copy aren't addressing the customer, they're addressing the boss's boss. In a dysfunctional organization like Microsoft, communicating up rather than out is how you get promoted. It's a rare Microsoft employee who moves up the ladder by thinking about the customer.

[landr0id]

Well in fairness, the link points to the Windows blog. The actual marketing page should probably be the link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-book...

[juliand]

This should be the linked page. A lot more of information than the blog post.

[nailer]

Perhaps if we summon dang it will be changed?

[dagaci]

Thanks for paying attention and pointing this out, a blog post is not a product catalogue!

[imh]

Well that ad's great. It has a footnote giving caveats to the very first sentence!

[Deinos]

This might be one of the best explanations I have seen for MS ad copy and marketing in general. Thanks for the insight.

I never actually considered it from an "internal customer" (i.e. the boss) perspective. I just always saw them as painfully out of touch, but it isn't an "out of touch" issue; it is a focus issue.

[duxup]

"they're addressing the boss's boss"

I wonder about that with truck commercials.

I feel like every truck commercial is a sort of "See this is how we want our customers to act!"

[kpxxx]

The difference is they are demonstrating fantasies or idealizations that much of their customer base have or aspire to themselves. Truck commercials are made that way with a large part of their customer base keenly in mind.

[hitekker]

Describing communication in terms of flow and direction is intriguing; it does sound like you have the experience to know what the problem is.

[setgree]

I really appreciated this analysis, thank you.

I just clicked the blgopost and was surprised by its quality even after having read these comments. I expect large companies to display good grammar.

Relatedly, it seems like Microsoft has a million blogs on different domains, it's hard to keep track of what's what.

[criddell]

I don't think that's what is going on here. The guy who wrote this (Panos Panay) is the VP in charge of the entire Surface brand. He is the boss.

[markcmyers]

It's my understanding that Panos Panay reports to Brad Smith, who reports to Satya Nadella. He is a boss, not the boss.

[k__]

Also, he's a VP, so he will probably not have written it himself.

[_pmf_]

Incredibly accurate.

[firemancoder]

I've suspected this is the case at a LOT of companies. So many marketing and advertising decisions are made this way. As long as they sell enough units it looks like a success, no matter how much potential was thrown away.

This is what made Jobs so great. Most of the criticisms about him are surely correct, but he was a boss who tried to understand the customer, and succeeded at it frequently.

[brudgers]

[gone]

[traek]

“addressing the boss's boss” isn’t referring to writing for high-level decision makers at other organizations, it means writing for people within Microsoft.