The First Bill Gates + Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft Ad Makes No Sense
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
I prefer "wtf" AND funny, like these skittles commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUJ4uorYPoY
(full disclosure: I loathe MS as much as anyone)
And people stopped reading long books 10 years ago. Now it's all Dan Brown type crap you can polish off in a day.
the ad shows a normal conversation between two people. it wants to show that pcs are for normal people. this is achieved because it makes you think: hey look here are two famous people discussing something normal...
that's the thought that runs in your subconsious and thats what microsoft wants, where instead the message of Apple ads is hey "we use mac, we are better than you" bullshit...which apple's message is annoyingly imprinted in their users mind, reproduced in an annoying way by most of them.
maybe if those 2 people lived in the world of seinfeld it'd be normal... but I didn't feel it was very normal; it was weird like the sitcom
hmmm to me the message of the Apple ads isn't 'we are better than you', it's more like 'why put up with this crap anymore? life can be easier if you try something new'
What in the world is bill gates doing in a shoe store? (Everyone knows he's a billionare.)
And: Why was seinfeld acting like his servant and/or worshiping him.
But do people buy the product? Does the ad reposition the brand or company?? It is certainly possible that this advertisement does either or both of these things, but simply generating buzz in and of itself is not a valuable use of an advertising budget.
Now that I think about it, compare and contrast this to the famous 1984 ad. I love it, it's great theatre. It made everybody talk about Macintosh--because it mentioned the brand. It positioned the brand as being against IBM and corporate computing.
This ad is empty calories, buzz without direction.
Think about this: if all they wanted was this level of buzz, they could have put out a press release indicating they were buying Yahoo. Same buzz, doesn't cost M$300.
BTW I'm not sticking up for the ad. I doesn't do anything for me.
With the cash they have on hand, I have never understood why they aren't doing more parallel development in smaller groups to let the good ideas happen organically. They continue to try to fit every new product into the existing Microsoft ecosystem -- something that is beginning to fail.
As companies get both bigger and older, internal politics seem to have a larger impact on company policy. There are surely many Microsoft employees who have a vested interest in keeping things exactly how they are, investing money and resources in existing projects that maintain or expand their power base, regardless of the benefit or lack-thereof to the company as a whole. It's a type of corporate inertia that's difficult to overcome once in place.
it has failed. big time, too. do you want a Zune? ;-)
I guess they want to start the hero worship of bill gates. (Mind meld? A sign from above? Running into a store to be a personal servant?)
However what the ad accomplished was that Microsoft got associated with dinosaurs - they managed to brand their own software as old and cranky.
I was absolutely flabbergasted that a company with that kind of resources couldn't at least find an intern to tell them that this was a really really bad idea. This looks like more of the same...
I'm honestly not trying to take a dig at the ad, but it did feel rather tragic.
Jer
I'll await further installments with interest. Maybe someone a bit more young and trendy could be be picked to play alongside the Gates / Hodgeman PC-analog...
What do I do now?
Now, how about getting the right operating system for your personal computer? Can some company satisfy every customer find their perfect operating system?. Its a challenge, I would say... and then there are some who want it moist and chewy, not dry and crunchy.
Just my interpretation and a thought that crossed my mind as I was trying to download a patch for my machine...
Of course, even the best advertising company can't save Microsoft. They need a miracle.
How long do you think it will take for the market cap of Amazon and Google to surpass Microsoft? In 100 years and beyond, Microsoft will disappear and Google will achieve immortality, at least until we abolish capitalism.
I suspect that, in a mere 25 years, Google will get the same respect that Microsoft does today (ie some, at least from some quarters, but much less than heyday levels). Some young bucks will come along with the same combination of smarts and business savvy and build the next big thing, and lots of the bright people currently at Google will have retired or moved on to other things.
Compared to the BM ads, especially, this is pretty funny. (I actually think it's decent on its own, but I've always been a big Seinfeld fan.)
It doesn't do much for MS's image, though, as far as I can tell. I thought Bill Gates was already popularish? The problem is the company.
As much as we may hate to think it, in the end, I think Microsoft wins again because we DID watch the ad didn't we?
Jerry and his comedy is the bait.
We now know microsoft is up to something "delicious." whoopie.
The problem with your statement, is that watches mean nothing if they do not sell the item. Selling the item means nothing if people don't view the ad.
One does not work without the other. In this case its getting views but its not selling, educating or performing anything to those views. This ad is nothing but empty views.
The sad fact is that pc's are cheap and most people (general population) are lazy or uninterested in installing (or even learning about) other operating systems.
The product is sort of forced upon us. All we can really do is cope.
It seems like a lot of people upgrade their windows operating system when a new one comes out (except with vista because of all of the bad reviews).
Ads aren't just for selling stuff directly. This ad doesn't sell anything, it changes brand image.
(Tho' actually I suspect those are are more about changing the company's image as an employer)
The thing is Microsoft have succeeded despite their brand rather than because of it, and the company have long been demonised and seen as the convicted monopolist and stuffy and corporate. Notice how the Microsoft brand is played down on both the Zune and Xbox 360 sites for example.
Trying to humanise the company and making them seem less corporate by giving them a friendly face is probably a good thing for their brand in the long term, will make people associate with their brand more positively and in my view is certainly a better direction than yet another Vista campaign that will do little to raise awareness further and shift very few copies.