Jerry Seinfeld // Current

Microsoft retires Seinfeld ad campaign

TV viewers can return to their favorite programs without fear of seeing Bill Gates shaking his tushie now that Microsoft Corp. has retired a bizarre two-week-old ad campaign featuring the software giant's chairman with comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
Bloggers and online media have suggested that the Redmond, Washington-based company yanked the Seinfeld ads after they were poorly received. The ads show Gates and Seinfeld trading banter at a mall shoe store and while living with a suburban family, trying to get in touch with regular people. Seinfeld asks Gates nonsensical questions about the future of computing, and Gates responds with "signs" that he's on the right track, including "adjusting his shorts," as Seinfeld called the awkward hip shake, and doing "the robot," a dance move.

However, a senior vice president in Microsoft's central marketing group, Mich Mathews, contended in an interview Thursday that it was always the plan to replace the Seinfeld-Gates ads with ones that focus on Windows.

"The notion that we're doing some quick thing to cancel (the Seinfeld ads) is actually preposterous," Mathews said. "Today was always the day. ... Media buying is something you have to do months in advance."

Mathews described the three Seinfeld spots as ice breakers with a limited shelf life, designed to grab people's attention in a tongue-in-cheek way without the pressure of having to talk about the product.
"We wanted to be sure that when we do come out with our major message, today, 'Life Without Walls,' more people would be paying attention than they would otherwise," Mathews said. "My goodness, did we do that."

The Windows-focused campaign attempts to turn Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads on their head. A new TV ad set to debut during "The Office" on NBC Thursday evening begins with a Microsoft engineer who looks like the PC character in Apple's ads saying "Hello, I'm a PC, and I've been made into a stereotype." He's followed by a montage of real-life PC users, celebrities and Microsoft Windows engineers who all repeat the "I'm a PC" mantra.

Microsoft also has ads queued up for print, Web and public spaces that focus on the way Windows, Windows Mobile, Microsoft's Live services and its TV platform connect.

The $300 million campaign was designed by ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Microsoft said the company is "exploring options" with Seinfeld for new ads, but that no ads beyond the three that aired have been filmed so far.
TV viewers can return to their favorite programs without fear of seeing Bill Gates shaking his tushie now that Microsoft Corp. has... more

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2 months ago

Echoing the Campaign of a Rival, Microsoft Aims to Redefine ‘I’m a PC’

It appears that Microsoft just can't take it anymore. I'm sure you have seen the recent Gates and Seinfeld TV spots which were ill-received and left many views confused. Being an avid Apple supporter, I had a slight bit of guilt when I chuckled at the ridiculous and pointless plot of the ads. Either way those ads are being kicked to the curb. Next, Gates will be fighting back with a direct attack on Apple's ever popular "I'm a PC" ads.

"One new Microsoft commercial even begins with a company engineer who resembles John Hodgman, the comedian portraying the loser PC character in the Apple campaign. “Hello, I’m a PC,” the engineer says, echoing Mr. Hodgman’s recurring line, “and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”

The strategy to use the Apple attack as the basis for a counterstrike is typical for the agency behind the campaign, Crispin Porter & Bogusky.

Crispin Porter, part of MDC Partners, relishes efforts to transform perceived negatives into positives. For another client, Burger King, the calorie-stuffed menu is portrayed to a target audience of young men as a rebellious personal choice to “Have it your way.”

Mr. Gates makes a cameo appearance in the new Microsoft spots, along with celebrities like the actress Eva Longoria, the author Deepak Chopra and the singer Pharrell Williams. (Mr. Seinfeld is gone, at least for now.)

But the stars are everyday PC users, from scientists and fashion designers to shark hunters and teachers, all of whom affirm, in fast-paced, upbeat vignettes, their pride in using the computers that run on Microsoft operating systems and software.

Among them are more than 60 Microsoft employees, who are accompanied in the ads by e-mail addresses — even Mr. Gates’s (bill@windows.com).

Apple executives have been “using a lot of their money to de-position our brand and tell people what we stand for,” said David Webster, general manager for brand marketing at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash.

“They’ve made a caricature out of the PC,” he added, which was unacceptable because “you always want to own your own story.”

The campaign illustrates “a strong desire” among Microsoft managers “to take back that narrative,” Mr. Webster said, and “have a conversation about the real PC.”"

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2 months ago

Forget Seinfeld, Microsoft, you want the two Coreys

Thursday, we learned that Jerry Seinfeld, one of the funniest men on the planet, will be the new spokesman in an ad campaign for Microsoft's Vista operating system. Can Seinfeld steal some of the marketing thunder from Apple's hipster Macintosh dude and the poor, shlubby Windows fella who clearly needs to get his suit tailored?
Well, as our readers have noted, there's a bit of irony to this, since many of us recall that Seinfeld was always using a Mac on his '90s sitcom. That got us thinking: Should Microsoft hire someone not so clearly playing both sides of the fence? Thankfully, our readers had some terrific ideas.

• Our first commenter, "J-Hawaii," had a good suggestion, a Borg drone from Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, I'm not sure this is the best representative of Microsoft's business-first attitude. While we often think of the Borg as joyless automatons of a conformist culture, the best-known Borg, Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, added new femininity to cyber-kinetic life forms. Even the creepy Borg Queen in the movie Star Trek: First Contact had a certain je ne sais quoi about her.
Could a Borg offer the first sex appeal to a Microsoft ad campaign since the Rolling Stones were singing Start Me Up for Windows 95?

• Commentator "Dirk VanNerden," along with many others, suggests Steve Carell and the rest of the cast of The Office. Makes sense; you've got vaguely unhappy office folk stuck in workplace purgatory in Scranton, Penn. (I grew up about 20 miles from Scranton, so trust me: "purgatory" is a nice way to put it.) Total Microsoft stereotype. Nails it.
However, a Microsoft fan might point out that the cast of a Carell movie, The 40-Year-Old Virgin could work just as well for Apple. You know, gadget heads stuck forever in some sort of adolescent, video-game-playing, pot-smoking purgatory.

• Homer Simpson, Charlie Brown, Rodney Dangerfield, Jason Alexander (who played hapless "George" on Seinfeld), and other people doomed to never get it right (unless they do the opposite of what they'd normally do, like George did): Personally, I think the diabolical, nuclear-plant-owning "Mr. Burns" on The Simpsons might be a better stand-in for a company that throws out a profit of a few billion dollars every quarter, despite the Vista follies. But, hey, that's just me.

• "Cafteach" suggests the great comedian and San Franciscan Robin Williams. Makes a lot of sense: Like Microsoft, Mork was at the height of his powers in the '90s, winning an Oscar for his performance in Good Will Hunting. And like Microsoft, he's laid some eggs in recent years. Did anyone even see RV? That said, he was still awfully funny as a penguin's voice in Happy Feet (or was that a puffin?)

• "Theoscnet" offers the cruelest cut of all: The two Coreys, "Corey Feldman and Corey Whoever..." It's Corey Haim, Theo. I looked it up for you. It's been a long time since we got the double-Corey treatment in '80s classics such as License to Drive and The Lost Boys. (But wasn't Keifer Sutherland really scary as a Jim Morrison-inspired vampire?)
The last we saw the two Coreys, they were puffy 30-somethings starring in The Two Coreys--"a look at the lives of former child stars Corey Feldman and Corey Haim living together as adults," as The Internet Movie Database puts it.
Microsoft...a metaphor for washed-up child stars? No way, but it's fair to say the company is starting to look a little puffy and out of fashion in its middle age, as our readers are quick to point out.Thursday, we learned that Jerry Seinfeld, one of the funniest men on the planet, will be the new spokesman in an ad campaign for... more