I was young when the first two versions of OS/2 were released[0] but worked at a large (US) national computer retailer around the time Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp were at war. I ran Warp on my home PC. And I replaced it with Windows 95 when it came out despite being a fanboy at the time. At the end of the day, Win95 ran more software that I owned and ran the things that OS/2 Warp ran. It did so a little faster and about as reliably.

One of the strangest moments at that time happened at -- I think -- at an airport in California returning from a family vacation. While walking to our gate, passing various subway-station-like ads which were all technology related[1].

I recall a computer-nerd stereotype figure posed next to a quote along the lines of "OS/2 Warp obliterated my PC"[2]. The advertisement was, surprisingly, not paid for by Microsoft. I'd like to say that the advertisement didn't affect my fanboy-ism, but my affinity for the product ended that day. In a moment, the "cool OS" that was 32-bit, somewhat Windows compatible, ran relatively stably (compared to the options available for my PC[3]) became the Steve Buschemi meme. The veil was lifted. IBM was a phony. They were clearly trying to use the word "obliterated" as a compliment. I could imagine a group of suits in a room trying to come up with a word "the kids use" to mean "cool", focus-grouping that word with a bunch of middle-aged adults while patting each other on their backs for a marketing job well done. And I pictured myself as that nerdy character they provided as the typical user of their software. It was not a look I liked.

I don't know that I've ever had a marketing campaign affect me as much as that -- certainly not one that's affected me that negatively when the opposite was intended. I'm guessing this was a small campaign, as I've only seen the one poster and references to it in magazines at the time. It was the Gold Standard of stupid, reminding everyone that "Yup, it's still IBM; the behemoth that tried to kill 'the clones' with lawsuits and over-priced PS/2 PCs with over-priced peripherals that they took royalties from".

[0] Oddly, the first well paying salaried job that I had in the late 90s was at a company with a large number of PS/2 machines running OS/2 2.x -- well after the (effective) death of Warp on the consumer front.

[1] I was young enough that I can't remember which airport, but I want to say LAX or SFO; the vast majority of the ads were technology focused and many were for products I had not heard of -- much like the Detroit airport has advertisements for automotive suppliers many would not have heard of, targeting business travelers.

[2] This was long ago enough that I'm sure I have the details wrong -- Gooble searches yielded an "Obliterated my Software" campaign, but no direct references just an obscure comment from a user (who's not me) and an archived magazine. I want to say the letters were wavy to go along with it and that the person appearing in the ad was meant to portray what most people think Star Trek fans look like.

[3] Admittedly, the main reason I ran it was to keep a multi-node BBS working -- it had multi-tasking support that functioned well with the DOS-based BBS that I ran in the background meaning I didn't have to shut the whole thing down when my Dad wanted to use the family PC.