Apple Asked Microsoft to Stop Laptop Hunters

Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner yesterday told attendees at Microsoft's Partners Conference in New Orleans that Apple called his company and told them to stop airing its Laptop Hunters series.

Calling it the "single greatest phone call he's ever taken in business" Turner said that once Apple had lowered the price of its expensive notebooks, its legal team called Microsoft and asked that the commercials not be aired any longer because they had reduced prices.

The whole thing began because Turner was bragging that the Laptop Hunters adverts were actually working. As proof he said the following (full transcript available here):

And you know why I know they're working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, "Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices." They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I've ever taken in business. (Applause.)

I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, "Is this a joke? Who are you?" Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we're just going to keep running them and running them and running them.

Unfortunately, right before he let everyone in on the fact that Apple begged them to take commercials off the air, Turner said that the commercials were completely unscripted and that they just asked people their price range, gave them the cash and sent them in to buy a laptop.

Just giving people saying, hey, what are you looking to spend? "Oh, I'm looking to spend less than $1,000." Well we'll give you $1,000. Go in and look and see what you can buy. And they come out and they just show them. Those are completely unscripted commercials.

Hard to believe when you consider Lauren, the subject of the first commercial, was actually an actress.