Most users today who continue to use Microsoft Office 2021 instead of the Microsoft 365 service do so deliberately: they simply they prefer to pay once for a product rather than be tied to paying for a recurring subscription. However, Microsoft does not seem to have that very clear…
…so you’ve started running ads to promote Microsoft 365 to Office 2021 users. Nothing out of the ordinary if it weren’t for those ads are not being inserted on any website, neither on YouTube, nor on Spotify, but in Office itself.
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$0.99 for 3 months of Microsoft 365. Redeem offer now, user
In recent days, several users have spread screenshots showing ads with ‘limited offers’ in the form of an alert bar in the Office menuthe same format commonly used by the office suite to ask users to enable macros in their documents.
Although not all the ads are identical, most offer promotions consisting of getting access to Microsoft 365 (the family plan, specifically) for 3 months for only $0.99, being able to share them with up to 5 people, accompanied by a ‘Redeem’ button. offer’. yes, for now they do not appear to be launching ads in euros targeting European users… we’re off for now.
Also, according to the fine print:
“This offer is only for select customers who do not have an active Microsoft 365 subscription or trial, or subscribers who have recently canceled it.”
This strategy has been so shocking that one of the most widespread critical tweets corresponds to none other than a Microsoft employee: Lee Holmes, Microsoft Azure Security Lead and PowerShell developer.
This is so disappointing. pic.twitter.com/1b9fVMnY2U
— Lee Holmes (@Lee_Holmes) August 12, 2022
All this is, as Holmes says, “disappointing”, but not unexpected by Microsoft: It is far from the first time he has done something like this. He already resorted to a very similar strategy just two years ago, promoting Office in the free WordPad app…
…but also showed Covert sponsored advertising in Microsoft Edge just a year ago, and it has done it twice in File Explorer itself (in both cases to promote Microsoft OneDrive), in 2017 and just a few months ago.
Via | Office Watch