Despite some early setbacks in marketing, Microsoft’s Surface branding is slowly becoming synonymous with the National Football League. The extent to which the Surface tablets are being represented in the NFL has revealed itself in the famed video game franchise of Madden NFL where the now ‘iconic’ blue-clad devices can be seen in the hands of polygon coaches and player on the sidelines.
With another NFL seasons now underway, football fans will be inundated with more advertisements that highlight the unique relationship the Surface holds with athletes, coaches, physical trainers, and upper management that make up one of America’s favorite weekend past times. New on the docket is a series of Surface promotions that feature NFL scout Trey Brown, who uses his Surface to help organize his day-to-day responsibilities of measuring football talent against team needs.
The series of Surface promotions follow in tone to years prior with Brown extolling the virtues of touch, flexibility, and power that appear unique to the form factor.
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However, this year, it seems Microsoft is no longer targeting its rather larger Windows-only user base but including the focus of a minute growing interest of Mac buyers. Last year’s advertisements singularly focused on what the Surface is and does, but in one of Brown’s testimonial spots, the barb of “Mac’s can’t do that,” was tossed into the quick fifteen-second video.
Over the past few advertisements, be it a Microsoft Surface device or one of the company’s PC partners, Windows-powered devices have been subtly tossing jabs at the perceived limitations of Mac devices. Whether or not the marketing strategy ends in the conversion of interested Mac shoppers or owners remains to be seen, but it seems clear that PC OEMs and Microsoft are done being corralled to compete against one another and ready to take on Apple for customers directly.
