We admit we’re a bit snarky when it comes to Microsoft, especially when it comes to the company’s Apple Retail Store clone, the Microsoft Store, but even we have to admit the Redmond firm’s new holiday-themed ad warms our Grinchy hearts a bit. Luckily our hearts haven’t grown three sizes. Enlarged hearts are a dangerous medical condition!
The 60-second ad spot shows Microsoft employees filing out of the company’s new Fifth Avenue retail store to make their way over to Apple’s flagship NYC retail location and share a seasonal carol with the Apple employees and other passersby.
MacRumors notes the event shown in the ad took place on November 16, with Microsoft employees from around the country joining a local NYC children’s choir to sing “Let There Be Peace On Earth” to a group of Apple workers. Lest you think it was a commando ambush-type event, AdAge notes Microsoft had to get permission from Apple to film outside their store, due to New York City’s strict security rules about such things.
Kathleen Hall, corporate VP-global advertising at Microsoft, said that because New York has strict security rules, Microsoft had to get permission from Apple to perform the song on the store’s plaza. Apple, she said, knew Microsoft would be filming something, they just weren’t sure what. In the spot, Microsoft employees begin singing, while Apple employees spill out of the store to watch. Employees from the two rival companies hug, a move Ms. Hall said was a moment of “setting differences aside and coming together.”
The ad – which is a total turn-around from last year’s Microsoft ads comparing its Surface Pro 3 to Apple’s Mac Book Air for its holiday push – will begin running on national television on December 3rd, and a longer two minute version of the ad will debut online the same day.
