In 2019 Microsoft spent more than 4 times more promoting the Surface than the Apple iPad

When you have a second-place product it often means you have to spend more to gain any market share.

Such is the case with Microsoft’s Surface products, with Microsoft spending massively to promote the line compared to Apple’s much more modest budget for the iPad, according to iSpot.tv’s numbers.

The analytics company revealed that Microsoft spent an estimated $219.1 million on Surface ads on TV, an 18.76% increase year-over-year. This is more than 4 times Apple’s ad spend on the iPad, which totalled $49.1 million in TV ads.

Microsoft also tried a lot harder, releasing 23 ads spots which played over 15,000 times, generating 9.06 billion impressions.

Apple only ran 3 ads for the year, one in only English in January and another in both English and Spanish in November, generating a total of 1.18 billion impressions.

Much of the ad spend was on spots during NFL Football, NBA Hockey and NHL Hockey, but ads in shows such as Walking Dead ad Jimmy Fallon also ranked highly.

Apple generated more than $21 billion in iPad revenue in 2019  while Surface revenue is likely less than 1/4 that amount.

Via Venturebeat