This is how you sell an MS-DOS Upgrade

The MS-DOS 5 Promo Video with its memorable visuals and music stylings is pretty close to perfect as advertising. Now you might laugh at the notion, but consider this one important fact. It is decades later, and we are still talking about it. Now it might not be in the same league as advertising classics like, “Where’s the beef?” or “I’d like to buy the world a Coke”, but in my opinion, this is still impressive.

This video was posted online a while ago, but last night I was up late watching it and really thinking about how to best describe the music. The best I could do was that it sounds like the music that results when you explain to a person who knows how to make music what “rap” music is, but they have never really heard it before.

The results are these terribly clunky and overly literal rhymes that do not flow well and are not catchy at all. Despite listening to it repeatedly, I still cannot remember a full lyric, but instead, I walk away with a general impression of what was said over the duration of the promo. It’s brilliant without being brilliant.

Now, I am not saying that modern advertising should attempt to mimic this bit of history, but I sort of am. Why bother with the same old, stale ads that we see again and again, when you could create an amateurish mashup of pop culture like an advertising mad scientist and have it stand the test of time? Think about it.