There has been some debate about the new Microsoft logo and the specifics of typography, but for laypeople, it looks very much like the new Microsoft logo is either derived from, or very closely related to the Macbook Pro logo by Apple. I’ll show you the argument, you decide whether they have learnt from Apple.
Branding is far more than just logos, but in my eyes, there’s a real case of one looking very much like the other. I still wouldn’t want to own a Microsoft product though.
One week. Three different examples of Apple getting their act together in terms of their customer services.
Apple are in serious danger of becoming mainstream at the moment. They seem to be on everyone’s shopping list and the research recently showed that more houses that have some wealth are choosing to add macs to their home computing set-ups. I wrote some more about this here.
What normally happens in line with this growth and move to mainstream, is a level of corporate arrogance that starts the beginning of the end for any brand. But Apple seem to be behaving slightly differently, with three examples that have happened to me this week.
1. My laptop broke
This has never happened to me before (yeah yeah yeah, I believe you). So I rang my old friends at Jigsaw who supplied it and they asked me to send it over for a free check to identify the issue. They went through it’s history and advised that it was just under two years old, so out of warranty. As the screen was totally dead, this sounded expensive.
The next morning, they called to say that it was a graphics card that had gone. Ouch. That sounds even more expensive. They went on to say that a few of them had gone wrong recently and Apple weren’t happy with this, so would be replacing them free. Result.
The machine was returned by taxi the next day in full working order again at no cost, even though it was out of warranty. Wow.
2. I couldn’t install Pages
This is part of a longer story but I am testing iWork and Pages (Apple’s version of MS Office/Word) in order that we switch all of the Purple Circle machines over to it, next time we need to upgrade. The cost difference for this with 30 licenses is £510 from Apple to £7950 for a Word upgrade. Who says Apple is the expensive option? Pages isn’t perfect, but it is very easy to use and with a more powerful dictionary, will be a better product that Word anyway. I had previously had the trial version downloaded and then wanted to install the full version which I had purchased, but every time I tried, it kept on saying my trial version had expired. aaaargh!
So i called the FREEPHONE number on the pack and spoke to a lovely person in Cork (just across the water from my family in Crosshaven), who spent 22 minutes talking me through solving the issue, which she did first time, again at NO cost to me. Wow two.
3. A broken Ipod
My Godson James had a problem with his iPod and took it back to John lewis from whence it came. After two weeks of sitting on it, they declared it broken and have just given him a brand new one for nothing. admittedly within warranty, but still a new for old replacement without any undue delay.
We have been huge fans of Apple since they declared they were going to be different with their unbelievable SuperBowl TV ad in 1984. It was at the time, the best ad I had ever seen and still enthralls me now. It was one of the reasons that I entered the creative world as I wanted to be associated with this sort of brilliance.
I liked it so much, I thought I’d share it with you again.
Apple are breaking the Microsoft monopoly and they are doing it by producing better products and caring more about their customers. Any brand that does this deserves long term success.
I’ve just come back to the Technorati website to have a look at what’s hot in the world of blogging, to a bold and fresh new look.
Oooh look, a bold fresh look for Technorati
Great I think, It must have needed freshening up, or maybe it was just some spare time work for the development team, or maybe it is marketeers tinkering with something that works, or whatever.
But it doesn’t work anymore. That’s a problem for any blogger anywhere who uses their service.
There are streams of complaints from disgruntled users, many of which are technically based but all of which add up to a branding disaster for Technorati.
Oooh look a bold new look for Technorati that their customers seem to simply hate!
If you’re going to upset an audience, then perhaps the blogging community is the most vocal, the most connected and the most keen to share their thoughts with a connected world.
Following on from my thoughts about Pentax and T-Mobile Sidekick, they need to act fast to get the functionality back or watch their fans/customers leave in droves.
Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking 