The Leaked Microsoft Video: What embarasses some may motivate others

Labeled as "stupid, embarrassing,laughably awful,"  Microsoft has been taking major heat for a video intended for its Vista sales team that leaked onto YouTube.

Actually, I don't think it's so bad--for what it is---an internal video for a sales meeting. Anyone who has ever gone to a sales meeting knows that for outsiders the insider jokes and humor always fall flat.

It's like overhearing two lovers whispering sweet nothing into each other's ears. It may sound great to the two lovers, but to the eavesdroppers its an eye roll.

What seems juvenile and insipid to the outsider, can help build morale for those tasked with selling.Such it is with internal sales material.  It is for a targeted audience. What motivates them, may embarrass us.

This was not a commercial. This was an internal video. We should be embarrassed watching it--we are not the intended audience. But just because we're embarrassed, it  doesn't mean that it didn't do what it was supposed to do: motivate the troops, create community and remind them that the company was supporting the product.

Many years ago, I was retained by an major insurance company to motivate their sales team to promote a particular life insurance policy. We decided to go with a cowboy theme ---not sure why but we selected a cowboy -- it seemed like a good idea at the time. We also created an audio in the style of a 1930's radio program to promote the benefits of selling this product.

The sales team said they were insulted. They said that we had trivialized their professionalism. On the other hand, they all remembered the product---for years. And that was the problem, the one point the client had failed to share before we went all out with this "high creative" was that it was a lousy product.

High creative and lousy products don't mix well. They only tend to embarrass and insult. Which could explain why people are so embarrassed by the video. It's hyping a less than stellar product. They used a spoof of the quintessential music video and they tainted it with a product that consumers are saying,

"Thanks, but no thanks."