Microsoft was a little too exuberant in its attempt to relate to youth culture when it debuted its new ad for the Kin social networking mobile phone. The ad features a group of hipsters invading a house party with youthful antics and the device, with one male party-goer using the phone to photograph his bare chest and send the picture to a female friend. Consumer Reports didn’t like that; they called the ad “downright creepy,” a criticism which Microsoft took very seriously by instantly pulling the video. The response was the company’s way to stay vigilant against teen “sexting,” which affects 1 out of every 6 teens according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
Kin’s latest ad campaign is a lot more benign; Microsoft is now following the adventures of Rosa, a young girl with 824 friends on her social network, as she goes to meet them all in person and find out who her real “friends” are (if you want to talk “downright creepy,” check out some of the guys she has lingering in her network . . . ).
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