I was about to write off the Windows® 7 Launch Party video as just another example of Microsoft’s fascinatingly tone deaf marketing, in the epic tradition of the Songsmith commercial, the Zune launch, and the lesser known but still awesome “what’s wrong with u?” campaign.

I was about to…when another thought struck me.

It’s fantastically unlikely that a company that is at some level aware of exactly what’s wrong with its marketing would continue to release such ham-fisted campaigns, even in cases where the products themselves are okay…right?

So try this on for size: what could be more endearingly, unthreateningly human than a company with tens of billions of dollars in revenue that consistently puts out advertising that would make Uncle Buddy’s Used Car Emporium cringe?

Seriously, just think about it for a minute. Did people really write, speak, and approve the line “Microsoft, huh? So it’s pretty easy to use?” with a straight face? I think not.

Microsoft is toying with us, easing our guard down. You can almost hear their competitors saying “yeah, I know that some of their recent products have been pretty decent, but have you seen that latest commercial? They’re out of touch. They’re on their way out. We’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Man, if Microsoft is on your competitive radar at all, get ready for the sucker punch—this is the only explanation that makes sense. Nobody could have marketing this bad without a reason for it.