Sep 09 2008
$300 Milliion And That’s What You Get?
Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates
By now, you’ve probably seen or heard about the new Microsoft Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld ad. I’ve been asking friends for their opinions, reading blog reviews, and trying to sort out whether this campaign is a disaster or a success.
The odd thing is – you can’t tell if the campaign is succeeding, because there is no hint of what the goal is or who the pitch is aimed at.
Ten years ago, Seinfeld may have succeeded with a show “about nothing.” Microsoft today? Not so much.
To the technology crowd, the ads are an unmitigated disaster. What do shoes have to do with computers? Where’s the full throated defense of Vista? Is it a good idea to alienate your influential “talkers”?
To my feminist friends, the ads are full of off-putting, subliminal, phallic imagery. (If you don’t see it, count yourself lucky. The point isn’t whether it’s intentional or not. The point is that some percentage of buyers with money to spend do see it and are put off by it.) Apparently, Microsoft believes all computer users are male (and socially inept). Do you really want to write off 50% of your potential buyers?
From people who happened to catch the ad during the ball game, the response has been a giant “Huh???” This may not be the way to reach new users who’ve heard nothing but bad things about Vista. Is it so bad that Microsoft won’t even whisper its name – although they will talk about Gates’ shorts?
Is ‘Viral’ A Word Microsoft Really Wants Associated With Windows?
Everyone is talking about the ad, so you would have to say it is a word-of-mouth success.
But that begs the question – when you are rich enough to spend $300,000,000.00 on an ad campaign, shouldn’t you be advertising something besides Gates’ puckish personality?
And doesn’t “viral” sound enough like “virus” that you just might want to avoid spending hundreds of millions of dollars further cementing those two words together in mass consciousness?
If you had 1% of Microsoft’s ad dollars – what would your marketing look like?
UPDATE: The Economist likes the ad.
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