WARNING: Do not be deceived by the NPR-level haughtiness hereby offered. Just because it involves esoteric (and perhaps pithy, ne erudite) critique of corporate giant Microsoft's clumsy communique, doesn't mean it ain't useful to us reg'lr folks.
The series above is from a sadvertising reader - it's from a web-mercial promoting Microsoft's new flight simulator, "Flight."
Describing the video - a series of text screens fade-in/out over passing of clouds; the lines are simple, profound - meant to be read a'la Morgan Freeman. The effect? Magical. Sensory - one can almost feel as if one is flying! At the end, the viewer is struck by anticipation, reeling in the promised WONDER.
Nothing sets the tone like Shakespeare. Eh? Pour the Bordeaux into the Riedel - spread the Camembert, we're going deep...
And now begins the legendary hooey from Microsoft's marketing department.
"There's this line from Shakespeare..."
Oh geez. As soon as someone states that, the pretension starts to bubble like gas from canned chili.
"My soul is in the sky."
Oh geez x 2. The line isn't from "Shakespeare" - it's from his play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." You knew that right?
"You know the feeling."
Sweet jimminy. I hope not. Because the line is uttered after one of the main characters STABS HIMSELF and then utters, "Now die, die, die, die, die."
Of course your "Soul is in the sky." You're dead, silly.
Time out. Yeah, yeah, only one out a million know anything about AMND at all. So why dredge up the arcane and throw yet another rock at the mighty tower of Microsoft's marketing department? Because this screen was sent to me by a Sadvertising reader who found it on an aviation blog frequented by - you guessed it - flight sim users!
It looks as if Microsloth simply "googled" (or Bing'd?) quotes on flying, found one, looked at the clock, saw it was 4:15pm on a Friday and got'er done. I'd expect this kind of sloppiness from someone like me, but Microsoft?!
Beware copywriters - there may be Shakespeareans among your target market. In the meantime, Microsoft would have better quoted Poe. He would have appreciated "Blue screen of death."
