Arguably the funniest ad ever to have ever been commissioned for an MS product has been cancelled over fears of causing offence to viewers. The web ad focussed on highlighting Private Browsing mode of Internet Explorer 8 and featured a woman projectile vomiting in response to what her male companion had been viewing online. This feature is now in the latest releases of all mainstream browsers and is colloquially (and perhaps most aptly) referred to as ‘Porn Mode’ in which the browser does not store lists of visited sites, cache or cookies allowing no traces of a surfer’s adventures through the fetishist depths of cyberspace to be found by others who use the same PC.
The ad was allegedly pulled as some viewers found it offensive which, while I can understand, does nothing to detract from the fact that we can all relate to suffering from that OMG IGP feeling sometimes (Oh my God I’m gonna puke). Let’s face it: people look up some crazy sick stuff on the net.
It’s such a shame MS lost their nerve and pulled this ad though. Quite who are heading up Microsoft's ads these days, I’m not sure but long may it continue. Fantastically funny.
- - UPDATE - - There are actually a whole host of funny ads designed to promote IE 8. You can check them out here.
Where do you find these awful ads, Michael?
ReplyDeleteI actually stumbled across that one quite innocently via Google News. :-)
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