MSN

April 22, 2003 8:29 AM

$300 million in advertising= 300,000 lost subscribers. MSN's butterfly ad campaign has led to a loss of 300,000 subscribers. Why? Terrible creative(remember the butterfly man?)? Price competition? Saturated consumer market? Environmental outrage at the use of decals and graffiti? Discuss.
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy (40 comments total)

It could just be that Microsoft sucks!!
posted by drstrangelove at 8:41 AM on April 22, 2003

MSN's butterfly ad campaign has led to a loss of 300,000 subscribers.

Not necessarily. It's possible that the flight from MSN would have been worse without the $300 million ad campaign. Asserting that the ad campaign caused these people to leave is making an assumption. Correlation vs causation.
posted by jsonic at 8:41 AM on April 22, 2003

Yep, what jsonic said, only typed by slower fingers.

The article also mentioned churn from people that sign those horrible multi-year MSN contracts to get a ($400 usually) rebate when they buy their computers. I also submit that with a whole lot of people unemployed, there's less disposable income floating around.

They are down to only 8.7 million subscribers now. Poor Mr. Softee.
posted by Tacodog at 8:47 AM on April 22, 2003

It seems like a pretty obvious answer. Money. You can save $10-12 a month using cheaper services.
posted by monkeyman at 8:47 AM on April 22, 2003

The Butterfly Man looked like Arthur from The Tick.
posted by rainbaby at 8:48 AM on April 22, 2003

Perhaps it's because they were advertising filtering content?

Perhaps there's 300,000 people who don't agree with censorship?

Beats me! :)
posted by shepd at 8:49 AM on April 22, 2003

Perhaps a bunch of them upgraded to DSL or Cable?
posted by riffola at 8:53 AM on April 22, 2003

Is it really that surprising that Micro$oft tanks in a non-monopolistic arena?
posted by magullo at 9:01 AM on April 22, 2003

all the dumbasses who fall for shit like spam-filtering porch-butterflys have gone over to aol, cuz after all, we are at war, and aol has america in the name and all. it's a "support our troops" thing.
posted by quonsar at 9:10 AM on April 22, 2003

Okay, speaking for my household of three fairly media-literate folks, we liked the Butterfly Man commercials. It wasn't enough to make us switch to their service (not by a long shot!), but hey, it generated a lot more grins for us than the usual hackles-raising dreck.

Everybody loves baklava!
posted by clever sheep at 9:13 AM on April 22, 2003

c'mon people! both figures begin with "300" -- they're so related.

i'm kidding.
posted by donkeyschlong at 9:14 AM on April 22, 2003

Perhaps a bunch of them upgraded to DSL or Cable?

You mean, there are still people using POTS modems?
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:20 AM on April 22, 2003

*Reaches out to throttle Mars*

I can't even get a 56k connection where I live so this might take awhile.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:23 AM on April 22, 2003

i did a teensy bit of work on some of MSN's creative as an outside vendor (just a TV ad) when they were launching the butterfly campaign. from what i could gather, not many inside MSN liked it, but seemed to be at a bit of a loss as to what would set them apart from the rest o' the pack, so they went with it anyhoo.

a couple of early draft scripts i saw with butterfly guy were much funnier than what made it onscreen. too bad.
posted by patricking at 9:38 AM on April 22, 2003

Maybe because 300,000 people don't want some stalker blue butterfly-freak harassing them??
posted by cinderful at 9:41 AM on April 22, 2003

I loved the one where an old, skanky, whore comes up to the porch and asks "wanna see my web cam?" I was suppressed to see it on TV, but hey.

But yeah, people don't need these mediated connections anymore, they need cheap and fast.

Also, if their spam filters are the same as they use on hotmail, well, they are never going to get anywhere.
posted by delmoi at 9:51 AM on April 22, 2003

jsonic: Right on; this conclusion is a classic case of PHEPH.
posted by dsandl at 9:54 AM on April 22, 2003

Okay, speaking for my household of three fairly media-literate folks, we liked the Butterfly Man commercials

My dad told me once that they made him feel like he was being patronized, and he's not exactly the most internet-literate person out there. I felt the same way.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 10:03 AM on April 22, 2003

Is it really that surprising that Micro$oft tanks in a non-monopolistic arena?

So how did they come to be a monopoly in the pc operating system and office software markets in the first place?
posted by nyxxxx at 10:08 AM on April 22, 2003

I loved the one where an old, skanky, whore comes up to the porch and asks "wanna see my web cam?"

delmoi, I still laugh when I see that one, and I've probably seen it a hundred times now.

It's a gem.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:15 AM on April 22, 2003

The average consumer doesn't give a shit about Microsoft's monopoly. They think that's just how PCs are. The only reason MSN ever had any market share in the first place was because of discount offers on PCs. Jsonic is probably right. Given the poor market for new PCs, MSN would have been really hammered if they hadn't advertised. Anyone know how Earthlink's numbers were? At least they seem more concerned about a good, fast connection than a crappy portal.
posted by monkeyman at 10:22 AM on April 22, 2003

So how did they come to be a monopoly in the pc operating system and office software markets in the first place?

Not by any technological innovations of their own, and certainly not by delivering content, which is what MSN is supposed to be about.
posted by jpoulos at 10:22 AM on April 22, 2003

I loved the one where an old, skanky, whore comes up to the porch and asks "wanna see my web cam?"

ditto.
posted by donkeyschlong at 10:22 AM on April 22, 2003

That butterfly dude always makes me get all weepy and nostalgic for The Tick.

Spoon!
posted by Cyrano at 10:23 AM on April 22, 2003

I was suppressed to see it on TV, but hey.

There is something Freudian in there some where.
posted by piskycritter at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2003

The first commercials bothered me because they depicted a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, rather than a chrysalis. One of the later commercials offended me because it showed the butterfly man "protecting" children chiefly by suppressing other people's freedom of speech. Then I realized that MS was using a bug as their mascot and the symbolism became clear: even their commercials are defective.
posted by joaquim at 11:01 AM on April 22, 2003

Microsoft will always dominate their core markets which will help them into 2nd or 3rd place in whatever field they aim for. I don't expect to see them in first place in the server market, the gaming console market, the cell market, and they certainly aren't going to win an ease-of-use award in my lifetime.

But they'll always be there, hemorrhaging money and reaching for the next thing.
posted by jragon at 11:05 AM on April 22, 2003

Was anyone else freaked out by the title bar of this page reading "MSN | Metafilter". God forbid. Really.
posted by 4easypayments at 11:16 AM on April 22, 2003

You mean, there are still people using POTS modems?

Until two weeks ago, Earthlink dialup owned my soul.

MSN is for the people who haven't used a computer much, are just getting on the internet, and want to stay with something familiar. Face it, for someone who's not very into the internet the only names they'll really know of are AOL and MSN, maybe Comcast or whatever cable provider is in their market.

Does MSN offer DSL connections yet, or is that just AOL?
posted by fujikosmurf at 11:21 AM on April 22, 2003

I like the butterfly guy (Tick memories), but hate the butterfly symbol; it's that damn Windows four-color scheme again. Try something new already.
posted by gramcracker at 12:45 PM on April 22, 2003

So how did they come to be a monopoly in the pc operating system and office software markets in the first place?

Government standards. A number of state governments started specifying that they did business using Microsoft Office file formats for the bids and such. This in turn led to major businesses using Office in order to be able to do business with the government. That, in turn, led to smaller businesses using Office in order to do business with the bigger businesses. And now we're in a world where nearly all business documents are in Microsoft formats, and thus the monopoly spins on.

That's my gross oversimplification of the situation, as I see it.
posted by mosch at 2:41 PM on April 22, 2003

For once MS pull out all the stops to no avail. Sheesh.
posted by SpaceCadet at 2:50 PM on April 22, 2003

Until two weeks ago, Earthlink dialup owned my soul.

What happened two weeks ago, fujikosmurf?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 3:02 PM on April 22, 2003

What happened two weeks ago, fujikosmurf?

I moved out of my parent's house. Despite the fact that my mother works for the cable company, they refused to wire the house or even let me run an cord so I could partake in the bounty of free broadband.

I'm still rather bitter, since now that I'm gone they're doing the wiring work.
posted by fujikosmurf at 3:42 PM on April 22, 2003

nyxxxx - by buying the competition and using their innovations.

Did anyone else notice that the colors on the bug's wings are inverted? (Look at your Start button)
posted by Nauip at 4:47 PM on April 22, 2003

The ISP market is splitting into two extremes -- fast and cheap. People will either cough up the money to go fast via cable or DSL, or seek out the cheap $9.95-14.95 a month ISPs. MSN dial-up is neither (same goes for AOL).
posted by pmurray63 at 6:08 PM on April 22, 2003

I'm still rather bitter, since now that I'm gone they're doing the wiring work.

They were probably trying to kick you out of the nest, and saw free broadband as a major disincentive.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 6:40 PM on April 22, 2003

The multi-color butterfly makes me think MSN is attempting to mimic the MSNBC peacock...anyone else ever make that connection?
posted by republican at 6:40 PM on April 22, 2003

They were probably trying to kick you out of the nest, and saw free broadband as a major disincentive.

Like I needed it. My father is retired. He is there ALL DAY, and I was either unemployed or working nights the entire time I was back home.

Trust me, the broadband thing was simply a minor annoyance next to that. Besides, it's not like I didn't move out as soon as I possibly could. ;)

Anyway, this isn't the fujikosmurf internet lifestyle thread, so please, continue to discuss Microsoft.
posted by fujikosmurf at 8:04 PM on April 22, 2003

Is ISP subscription still increasing? holding steady? Dropping overall? Certainly there must be some people out there who don't need the Web.

P.S.: speaking of spam, how useful are the products available? Do any of them filter by domain name? Seems like that would be the best way to do it (with some kind of frequently updated domain name list).
posted by ParisParamus at 8:37 PM on April 22, 2003