It's more creepy than offensive mostly because of her extreme reaction. It forces you to kind of use your imagination. It's obviously not some soft-core girl-on-girl porn she's seeing. It's obviously something far worse which is just really creepy. My first thought was child porn. I doubt that's what Microsoft intended but you gotta be careful suggesting something is REALLY bad or people will assume the absolute worst in many cases.
You underestimate the propensity of some people to be very shocked about completely normal human activities, if only the camera shows them close-up and they're not used to it. For instance, I want to puke when I watch live ultrasound of someone's heart (let alone my own). So if my spouse was a doctor she'd better download IE 8 right away! :-)
There are lots of gross-out possibilities short of the blatantly illegal or even bizarre pornography -- see rotten.com for example. But of course the aim of the ad is to make you wonder.
I think Microsoft got just what it wanted from the ad -- lots of voluntary views, much linking/discussion/controversy, and even now with the official versions pulled, people who haven't seen it yet will seek out remaining caches/copies.
(BTW, has any skilled lipreader reported what Cain is bleeped saying at the end? D'oh! By asking, I just played further into Microsoft's master plan!)
I watched the ad a couple of days ago and couldn't help but wonder: what in the world is wrong with Microsoft?! For a company with vast financial resources available (in 2008, cash reserves, short-term investments and cash equivalents totaled $20 billion), MS has been fumbling royally with their ad campaigns recently. Seinfeld, anyone? Unbelievable.
Sersiouly, if you have to stoop to such a low in order to push your product then that says something about the company behind it.
You can compete on merits, price, business model, all kinds of ways to get consumers to buy your product over someone else's. To play the fear card puts you right in the same bracket with some of the scum of the earth.
I'd expect a lot better from microsoft and I'm glad they pulled the ad, and I do not think that pulling it was part of the original strategy.
Seriously? Fear? Are we rocking this Focus on the Family style now?
It was a 50's housewife throwing up after seeing her husband's goat-fucking porn, as 100% up-front ad for IE8's porn mode. Maybe I have a juvenile sense of humor, but I thought it was hilarious.
And, yes, every other browser has porn mode, but at least Microsoft had the balls to advertise it for what it is.
