Earlier in the week we wrote about Microsoft’s latest Internet Explorer 8 TV commercial, which we believed was in bad taste and should never have made it past the drawing board of Microsoft’s marketing department. It involved a woman throwing up three times in under a minute -- once on the floor and twice on her husband (who had fallen in the original pool of puke and wasn’t standing up for who knows what reason). Originally meant to highlight the advantages of private browsing, most people just thought it was gross, prompting Microsoft to pull the ad.
However, instead of just removing the video and leaving at that, a Microsoft spokesman has said that much of the feedback about the ad was positive. The Redmond company told CNET that the reason they removed the video from the IE8 YouTube channel was because a few people found it disturbing but mostly, people liked it.
"We make a point of listening to our customers," said a Microsoft representative. "We created the OMGIGP video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing feature of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humor that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaign. While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it."
Do you think Microsoft was right to remove the ad? Let us know in the comments below! For any curious commenters who have no idea what we’re talking about, the commercial is still available here. If you’re not into seeing women throw up multiple times in under a minute don’t watch it.
