Welcome to the Social
As I walk around downtown Vancouver, I see tons of people listening to music on their iPods, CD players, or whatever other method they choose to use to enjoy their music. These individuals, trying to pass the time as they hurry from point A to point B, hardly even bother looking at me as they hurry by.
There is a psychological barrier that wearing headphones or earplugs creates between the listener and the rest of the world.
Putting on headphones in public, in essence denying the world, is probably more thrilling than the act itself would suggest. The kind of social force-field it generates is something I’ve needed to blunt the outside world for quite some time - and the ability to institute a directorial vision, even while in a grocery store, can’t be overstated. I challenge you to listen to Kate Havnevik in some crowded place and not find yourself miraculously transformed into the protagonist of a spontaneous film. Tycho, Penny Arcade
Looking at them, one feels like they aren’t interested in talking, aren’t interested in interacting; they just want to kill the time. For the most part, this tends not to be the case, but the image is definitely there.
This is why Microsoft’s ad campaign of “Welcome to the Social” for their new Zune is so odd. Listening to music is a very personal activity, so why do they think that it can be turned into a social event?
What am I talking about you might ask? Here are some handy Zune advertisements you might find interesting. ( I won’t even get into all the stuff I find wrong with these ads. That is a post for another day. … Although watching them again makes me seriously want to go into it in depth. Sorry to post so many, but I wanted to make sure I got all of them.)
- Picnic Ad
- Battle Ad (This is the best one I’ve seen)
- Concert Ad (Also a decent ad! I wonder if the advertising unit is finally pulling things together?)
- Couple Ad (Then again, maybe not)
- Dog Ad (ditto)
- Spinners Ad (extra ditto with sugar on top)
- Snow Ad (not half bad)
Understandably, the Wi-Fi is one primary advantages that the Zune has over the iPod. This isn’t to say that the Zune is an iPod killer; the iPod does too many things too perfectly for it to be such, but the Zune certainly has potential.
Tycho over at Penny Arcade, put together an interesting newspost about his lack of displeasure at owning a Zune (much to the surprise of many). His situation may be unique (or not), but he does go into depth about some of the advantages that he has discovered with the Zune.
Tycho continues on his discussion of the Zune during his experience at CES (as a side note, why was it so hard to find out what “CES” stands for on its website? I want information, I was given a noisy flash movie. Great webdesign folks, just great.)
I had hoped that there at CES I would have an opportunity to use the Zune’s social features - its “higher brain functions,” as I put it - but I was only there Thursday, after the place had largely thinned out. Near the Microsoft booth I was happy to see many devices speaking wirelessly - so many I had to scroll! - until I realized that they were named after genres, and were (in fact) the display units, which added greatly to my shame.
The two times I had an opportunity to share files were interesting - once on the floor itself, and once in the plane on the way back. In both cases, my offer was rebuffed. This actually feels terrible when it happens, because you’re trying to show someone something that is important to you and they don’t care. But let’s be clear: when someone is listening to music, that’s private. They are actively eschewing the outside world, and here you are - with some song they’ve never heard of - interrupting their lives. Let me also state that your music stops when doing this - even for someone that buys into the device philosophically, I mean… Jesus Christ, guys.
So, Microsoft, where’s the social? If I’m at an event and I want to play someone a song, I can give them my 5 year old, banged up, 10 gig iPod and let them listen to the song. More than likely, we would just have music on the stereo playing and everyone talking. No Zunes OR iPods in sight.
In conclusion, I think that Microsoft’s marketing scheme is the best thing it has going for it on the Zune because it is the primary advantage one has in using the Zune over an iPod, but the campain is also exceedingly bad. I quoted Tycho so much primarily to show the case of a “typical” Zune owner (except that he would have a much higher chance of interacting with Zune owners, I’d imagine, than most people). He is happy with the service, and in fact provides him with better service than he could obtain else-wise, (of course, if this article about Apple deciding to open the Fairplay DRM format is correct, the usefulness he finds there could potentially change). The real gold of the Microsoft Zune ad campaign is “the social” and as I hope to have demonstrated in this post, the Social doesn’t want to be social. The Social want to listen to their damn music in peace.
P.S.
oh, and Microsoft? Please don’t make ads like the one below, ok? They truly say nothing about your product and don’t even begin to get me excited about it.
One Zune Ad
Also, I’d just get rid of “Squirt.” Just do it. You don’t even have to tell anyone. Everyone already understands.
