What’s wrong with the marketing team at Dell these days?

Here’s the scenario for the new Dell television ad, apparently targeted at the ‘Back to College’ crowd. A young man is sitting on a sofa, calling Dell. Voiceover: “Thanks for calling Dell. What can we build for you?” The living room wall rotates around, like the magic fridge in the SuperBowl beer commercials, and suddenly he’s riding a supermodern golf cart with a Dell staffer, visiting a Dell manufacturing floor that looks like a cross between the airport in the Tom Hanks movie ‘The Terminal’ and the end of ‘Star Wars III’ where the heros have to dodge the dangers of an assembly line at high speed. Yes, there is a battle robot hanging from the line. And a purple gorilla. The customer points at what he wants, and yes, it’s the dancing gorilla from Bonzi Buddy. He also chooses a college professor, and, OK, what the heck, decides he wants it all. Yes, there’s a button for that. It’s apparently the ONLY button that’s used, as the others aren’t labeled. We see the purple gorilla climbing into the new Dell notebook–it’s an Inspiron e1505, and the closing credits show the tag, “Purely You.”

This is apparently the second ad in the “Purely You” series. Dell is showing the ads in this series online, and will probably put the gorilla ad up soon.

You would think that associating Dell notebook computers with the infamous spyware program Bonzi Buddy is a bad thing. Apparently having the speed and power to run a notebook loaded with spyware and startupware is the the most important concept that has to be promoted in their marketing. It’s apparently also a good thing to load every piece of software available. I bet that half of what they load is startupware–it surely serves some purpose for all that junk to autoplay, so it’s not evil, or no more so than trying to eat too much peanut butter all at once–who remembers the “stick to da wuf of ma mouf” commercial? Of course, much of that junk is a based on a subscription model, and Dell will receive a commission on anything you click that results in a purchase, a renewal, or an upgrade, so if the entire computer is adware, adding a purple dancing spyware gorilla isn’t really all that out of place.

Should you buy a Dell? I’m admittedly biased–you should only buy computers from local system techs who actually build systems specifically for you. Like, um, me.

But a Dell? Really? Well, read reviews first–this isn’t one. But they do claim they’ll build it purely for you. Ask for the dressing on the side. They should load Windows, and hardware drivers, and put everything else on a DVD for you to choose to install yourself, or not at all. (Really. And report back here with the result when you make your request…)

Hint: Windows XP, when first installed, has only ONE icon on the desktop; it’s the recycle bin. If your new PC has anything else on the desktop, it wasn’t put there by Microsoft. When ordering most PCs by phone, it’s either ‘the works’ or it’s just a cluttered mess that runs like a doorstop on a thick shag rug.

Anyway, whatever you do, DON’T ask for the purple dancing gorilla.