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Microsoft’s new guerilla marketing tactic: Draw graffiti of the Surface on local car washes [updated]

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 8:38PM EST
BGR

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Microsoft (MSFT) has started cranking up its marketing machine for the launch of the Surface this month and the company isn’t just going the normal route of buying billboards in Times Square. Network World‘s Yoni Heisler this week spotted some interesting guerilla Microsoft marketing that involved painting graffiti of the Surface tablet onto the wall of a Chicago car wash. Heisler described Microsoft’s strategy as “bizarre” because the company was”advertising for a product with… no advertised pricing” yet. Heisler also said that the Surface ads seemed ineffective because “it’s not as if ‘Surface’ is a household name associated with Microsoft” at this point. The good news for Microsoft? At least it didn’t compare the Surface to chairs.

UPDATE: The folks over at Neowin have been all over the Surface graffiti for weeks now and they have some additional pictures of Surface wall doodles in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

BGR’s own Raymond Wong also snapped some pictures of much more effective Surface advertising in the New York subway system on Thursday. We’ve graciously posted them below.

 

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Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.