Dean Cain’s weird new IE8 ads.
So I just saw the Dean Cain spots that are running on Hulu for the Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8. There are a whole slew of them (I embedded my favorite at the bottom of this post), and while I thought they were funny and a decent attempt at engaging some of the markets who have abandoned them (hardcore, meme-loving Internet geeks), I just don’t think these are going to work the way they want overall.
The problem with these is not the spots themselves or even the Internet Explorer 8.0 browser (at this point anyway). The problem is the tainted, toejam-smelling legacy that is the Internet Explorer product.
Let’s suppose for a moment that Microsoft came to market with a fully standards-compliant browser on par with its competitors. Sites that you go to aren’t all broken and weird, and people developing sites have less nightmares thanks to Microsoft’s willingness to actually play with the rest of the kids in the playground. I know. It won’t totally be that way, but let’s say just suppose.
Even with all that, people have been so burned with their previous experiences with the browser (I’m looking at you, IE6), that funny spots alone are not going to be a reason to give them another shot. There needs to be at least one spot that clearly states “Hey! Our browser isn’t gonna chew and shit out your favorite sites!”
In fact, there’s the next spot right there. They could call it H.O.B.I.G. C.A.S.O.Y.F.S.