Marketing has gotten very competitive in the digital world and advertising plays a significant role in staying relevant. Brands often end up undermining their opponents by taking direct shots at one another to establish their superiority in these difficult markets and engage in brand war. One such interesting brand war was struck between long time rivals Microsoft and Google.

It all started when Google launched its ad called ‘Now Everywhere’ in 2013 to promote Chrome, its web browser. The ad shows a bouncy chrome ball leaping across different devices and platforms to show that chrome can let access your data from any device giving you a simple and seamless experience.

Two months later, Microsoft used the same ad art style and tweaked the words to show that Google is breaching your privacy by tracking everything you do and then selling your data to advertisers. The smear campaign carried on further as Microsoft then went on to make a website called Scroogled Store where it sold t-shirts that mocked Google. Google replied to this saying “Microsoft’s latest venture comes as no surprise; competition in the wearables space is heating up.” as a play on words while it was working on its Google Glass wearable.