Get ready to 'Meet Your Match' with a Windows Phone: Microsoft

Microsoft has done it again. After its controversial ‘Smoked by Windows Phone’ campaign, where it went all out to prove that the Windows Phone is faster than Androids and iPhones, Ben Rudolph is back with ‘Meet your Match’ to try and convince other OS users that a Windows Phone is not just fast, it’s also smart.

In a post on the Windows Phone blog, Microsoft evangelist Rudolph wrote, “It’s is a different take on our Smoked challenges, focusing not just on why Windows Phone is faster, but also on why it’s better, easier, more useful, and more fun.” He also added, “The soul of Smoked – a side-by-side comparison of us vs. the other guys – hasn’t changed, but now it’s about why our phones and features are a better match for you, no matter who you are or what you’re into. “

Is your ‘match’ the Windows Phone?

Earlier this year, Microsoft kicked off its ‘Smoked by Windows Phone’ campaign, where it ran more than 50,000 challenges in 54 countries. Microsoft made users of rival operating systems pit their phones against a Windows Phone. The users were asked to whip out their phones and perform tasks such as pulling out the weather in two different cities faster than Rudoplh on a Windows Phone to win the challenge. The exercise had its own share of controversies with the challenged claiming that they had indeed won. Of course, Microsoft made the rules of this game.

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With Windows Phone 8 launched late last month, Meet Your Match comes as a timely exercise from Microsoft to convince people to change sides. This new campaign has already kicked off with Rudolph visiting malls and stores challenging people and putting up video blogs about it; the aim this time is clearly to prove that Windows Phone is not just faster but far more efficient and fun.

In one of the video blogs, Rudolph challenges the Cook family (getit, getit?) to click a better picture with their Android phones than the one he clicks with his Windows Phone powered HTC 8X and win a dinner with him. The cook family unable to win this challenge, Rudolph generously gifts them a Windows Phone to click better pictures, tag people in them, and easily access information about all those tagged in them.

In another blog, he challenges a couple to a similar duel of phones, this time the iPhone 5 versus the Nokia Lumia 920. The dining couple loses the challenge with the Lumia 920’s picture coming out as bright and lively as the phone’s bright yellow exterior. Rudolph emphasises to the duo, “This is the best camera phone ever built, period,” and offers them an ‘upgrade’ to the Nokia handset as the lady denounces her iPhone 5.

Just like Microsoft did with its Smoked campaign, it will be taking the Meet Your Match on a tour around the world, especially across Microsoft Stores across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Apart from the already much-viewed video blogs on YouTube, Meet Your Match will be turned into a major digital ad campaign to capitalise on the buzz it has already created.