Microsoft Pulls Phony Switch Ad 

Microsoft has pulled a phony Mac-to-PC "switch" ad after the switcher was uncovered as a Microsoft PR rep.

Story Tools

See also

• Read more Technology news
• One Man's Retro Mac Revival
• Where Old Macs Go Off to Thrive
• IBM Promises Muscle for the Mac
• Intel Keeps on Chipping On

Today's Top 5 Stories

• This Is Your Brain on Magnets
• Singapore SMS: Tlk Drty 2 Me
• It's Time to Shoot for the Stars
• Film: Mac Fervor, Malcolm X Style
• Taking a Risk for Science

Microsoft had posted a breezy advertisement on its website purportedly written by a freelance writer who switched to Windows from the rival Macintosh platform.

The ad echoes Apple's high-profile Switch campaign, which features ordinary people telling why they switched from the PC to the Mac. Apple's ads uses real people, who clearly identify their names and occupations, and speak in their own voices.

Microsoft's ad, on the other hand, did not identify the woman.

She turned out to be an employee at a public relations company hired by Microsoft: Valerie G. Mallinson of Shoreline, Wash.

Mallinson later acknowledged she was Microsoft's mysterious convert. The Associated Press tracked Mallinson by examining personal data embedded in Microsoft Word documents that Microsoft had published with its controversial ad.

"I guess I can tell the truth," Mallinson said Monday. "It was me. I made the switch."

On Monday, red-faced executives at Microsoft pulled the ad from the site. The ad is still available in Google's cache.

In Microsoft's ad, the unidentified woman wrote that she jumped to Microsoft after eight years as a loyal Macintosh user and boasted that the "process of switching was as easy as the marketing hype had promised."

Trouble erupted after amateur sleuths at a popular technology website, Slashdot.org, noticed that a photograph showing the woman with a cup of coffee was a stock image available from Getty Images' Photodisk.

Slashdot readers picked out what few personal details they could find hinting at the woman's identity. Unlike the Apple ads, which prominently include customers' names, Microsoft's mentioned only that the author was a 5-foot-3-inch freelance writer who once rented a Lexus and is married to a man who is 6 feet tall.

Documents accompanying the ad, which encouraged other Windows users to tell Microsoft about their experiences, included references to Mallinson's name, public relations firm, Wes Rataushk & Associates Inc., and personal website.

Although Microsoft pulled the ad, the documents are still available. The author's name can be found by going to the File menu and selecting Properties. The details are listed under the Custom tab.

Microsoft acknowledged that the writer's anonymity and use of the stock photograph contributed to suspicions whether it was making truthful representations. Executives pulled the ad Monday but still would not identify the author by name.

"It was an actual customer," spokeswoman Charmaine Gravning said. "We kind of figured out that really isn't the best way to go about communicating. We decided it was best to point customers to the Windows XP home page."

A spokeswoman from Apple Computer would not comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Have a comment on this article? Send it

More stories written by Wired News Report