Microsoft ropes in Pawn Stars to take potshots at Google Chromebooks

Microsoft has stepped its Scroogled campaign—the anti-Google series that has seen several ads and even a merchandise store—up a notch. The company has recruited the help of reality show Pawn star’s hosts to take a dig at Google’s Chromebooks.

For those not in the know, Pawn Stars is a reality show that chronicles a pawn shop where people bring in old items and artifacts to sell and make a quick buck. The series and its format are pretty well known and that makes the ad a little more interesting.

In the ad, a woman claiming to have purchased a Google Chromebook for her mom brings in the device to trade it in for a ticket to Hollywood. What ensues is a typical Scroogled campaign. In a condescending tone, the store clerk informs the woman that he cannot take the device off her for several reasons. Because it doesn’t run Windows and runs web apps instead, it’s pretty much “a brick” without an Internet connection.

That aside, he says, when you get on to a Google service, the company tracks every move you make in order to sell ads to you. With the Chromebook’s hardware, Google gets a hand on your data even faster and more easily. The woman is sent back with the information that since it cannot run “real” applications like Office and iTunes, it isn’t exactly a real laptop.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Microsoft has been harping on about Google’s tracking in pretty much all of its Scroogled advertisements and it looks like it has set the tone for the next few ads as well. Microsoft recently launched an actual online merchandise store where it is selling everything from caps to mugs, t-shirts and hoodies with anti-Google messages on them. As appalled as some people were, matters came to a funny juncture when Google hit back at Microsoft saying, “Microsoft’s latest venture comes as no surprise; competition in the wearables space really is heating up.”