Looks like Microsoft is back-pedaling on their new ad campaign starring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. A story on Valleywag reports that the ads are being pulled, and that their marketing team is trying to spin a positive face to it.
It seems some got the commercials and others didn’t. I’m going to put myself into the latter category and I see this cancellation as a wise move.
The Valleywag story says:
In a phone call, Waggener Edstrom flack Frank Shaw confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Seinfeld, and echoes his underlings’ spin that the move was planned. There is the “potential to do other things” with Seinfeld, which Shaw says is still “possible.” He adds: “People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected.”
The ads outright sucked. I saw two of them on the air here in the Tampa Bay market. Neither had any real plot and there was hardly any mention of Microsoft at all. The only thing it accomplished was making Seinfeld and Gates look stupid. I kept thinking it might lead into something, but that is bad marketing on Microsoft’s part.
Apple’s ads are short and sweet. They are humorous. Each and every commercial stands on its own and obviously makes the Mac look very good in relation to the nerdy PC. This is the point of the Mac v. PC commercials and they work extraordinarily well. Contrast that with the Microsoft ads which were:
- Too long
- Had no point.
- Barely mentioned Windows
And through all of this, I am STILL seeing the asinine Mojave Experiment commercials running on television. So, in one set of commercials, they do nothing. In the other, they are calling their customers stupid and trying to fool them into using Vista.
Microsoft is grossly out of touch with consumers.
There might be some hope for them, though. The New York Times has a story about the next stage of their marketing campaign that is going to directly take on Apple’s Mac v. PC series.
Some also say that the Seinfeld commercials accomplished what they set out to: to generate buzz. That might be, but if the buzz is bad, is it go good? Are they just trying to lower expectations so that they can more easily entertain us with the next phase of commercials?
It’ll be interesting to see how it rolls out.
So, did you see the commercials? What did you think?
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David — You are spot on. I saw the ad about shoes along with my very bright grandson and my equally bright son-in-law. All three of us are computer literate and watch markets. None of us across three generations got it.
Unless it was aimed at the other gender, it really missed the mark. Makes you wonder who the hell was on the committee that approved it. (For, it was obviously a committee!)
I thought the commercial where bill gates is reading a book to a little girl, and the girl asks bill gates is there monsters in this book, and bill responds: “Yes but their are firewalls” was hillarious.
Thought the shoe store ad was seriously lacking any point what so ever.
And my opinon on the home ad was honestly lacking but not seriously lacking.
OK, so I’m not stupid. I didn’t get the ads either. The next Windows will probably be on the web. Mojave is another way to dress Vista–and lame. I don’t know how much MS paid the agency that did their spots–but I’m guessing it would keep me comfortable for the next several years! What a waste.
I thought they were leaning a bit towards the lame side…
Microsoft may have not yet pulled the plug on the Gates/Seinfeld advertisment series.
According to Gizmodo.com:-
“From a trusted Crispin Porter source, we’ve learned that some sites have jumped the gun and that the Microsoft Gates/Seinfeld ads have not been axed. It’s true, Microsoft apparently asked the agency to focus on the new “I’m a PC” spots. And it’s true, the agency has gotten plenty of “I don’t know what this means” response in their measured statistics of the Gates/Seinfeld ads. But no one has pulled the plug on the dynamic duo just yet.”
See also http://kkomp.com/archives/1969
Fire the head of marketing. No,shoot him!
What I think those who “don’t get it” are missing is the fact it features Jerry Seinfeld. The guy who co-created and starred in a “show about nothing.” It’s goofy, light-hearted humor meant to dispel the perception of Gates and MS as buttoned-down behemoths. Trying to read something deeper into it is pointless. I’m not really a Seinfeld fan and I’ve come to hate PCs after spending time with Macs at work, but I gotta say, I think the main problem is the people creating and running the ads are giving the mental capacities of their audience too much credit.
I think they ads were pretty funny, though ultimately didn’t achieve the results they hoped for. A lot of the jokes, especially the one concerning the book about polymorphism and inheritance, will be lost on mac users who seldom program. In a Computer Science class of 200 people, I have noticed 2 macbooks, with the rest being PCs. So while the commercials were already funny to advanced computer users, they were horribly lost on mac-users (casual computing). Doesn’t this accurately describe the mac stigma to programmers, as well as the pc stigma to casual computer users?