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sbisson at 11:40am on 05/07/2003
sbisson at 11:40am on 05/07/2003One of the perils of a big conference is the amount of paperwork that you end up with. Not just the usual piles of presentation printouts and press releases, but also the vast amount of advertising bumpf you're handed as you walk around the exhibition stands.
TechEd 2003 was a little different. There was one piece of advertising that stood out, head and shoulders above the competition. It wasn't a big piece, and it wasn't something that should have appealed to more than a small number of mobile application developers: a flyer for Microsoft's Windows Powered Smartphone Developer Kit.
Cut to look like a picture of the Compal device that MS uses as a test device in the kit, it was a largish piece of paper that opened up to tell developers where they could order the kit, and what marketing support would be offered for their applications:
However, turn it over, and you'd see a disclaimer:
Now, that was funny...
(Or else we'd just seen too many advertising flyers already...)
TechEd 2003 was a little different. There was one piece of advertising that stood out, head and shoulders above the competition. It wasn't a big piece, and it wasn't something that should have appealed to more than a small number of mobile application developers: a flyer for Microsoft's Windows Powered Smartphone Developer Kit.
Cut to look like a picture of the Compal device that MS uses as a test device in the kit, it was a largish piece of paper that opened up to tell developers where they could order the kit, and what marketing support would be offered for their applications:
However, turn it over, and you'd see a disclaimer:
Now, that was funny...
(Or else we'd just seen too many advertising flyers already...)
amused
Shame you didn't have a pic of it held in a hand!
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Add to the list of daft disclaimers (my favourite is still "Warning: may contain nuts" on a packet of peanuts).
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And don't try to use it on any network using non-Nokia GPRS basestations :-(
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"Picture is the wrong size" is essential, for otherwise some no-life Micro$pod would whinge about it (and The Reg would probably repeat it). But that's a boring disclaimer and makes them look like a dull corporate covering their arse.
Adding "and flatter" defuses the whole thing. It makes it clear that the disclaimer is ridiculous and anyone who needs to take it seriously is an idiot.