Why Microsoft needs more Seinfeld ads
Microsoft launched a new ad this past weekend showing a delightful four-year-old girl using Windows Live Photo Gallery to upload, edit, and share pictures. At the end of the ad, she shows how "easy" it is to perform those basic functions and says, "I'm a PC and I am four and a half."
Once again, Microsoft is trying to show that there's a lighter side to its operation, which has taken a beating from Apple over the past few years. During Apple's "I'm a PC and I'm a Mac" ad campaign, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company continually suggested the software giant is dull and that Vista can't compete on any level with Mac OS X.
Microsoft's public image declined as Apple gained control of the topic. The average consumer only heard one side of the story.
Microsoft was forced to fight back against Apple and it started its $300 million campaign by enlisting the help of Jerry Seinfeld. The Gates-Seinfeld spots didn't discuss the value of owning a Vista machine and said little about Microsoft itself. Instead, they used Seinfeld's image and humor to convey a message: "Bill Gates is synonymous with Microsoft and just like him, we're able to loosen up, poke fun at ourselves, and we want you to realize that although Apple has painted us in a certain light, we're nothing like that."
Those who follow the tech world, readers of this column, and others [like your editor, Don] believed those ads failed to capture, well, anything positive. They believed that Gates looked awkward on camera. The humor was lost on them, and because they didn't discuss Microsoft products, they saw them as a waste of money.
I couldn't disagree more.
Apple did everything it could to ensure Bill Gates and Company were looked at as dull, geeky, money-mongering jerks with software that provided no benefit over the competition. Microsoft realized that saying, "No, Windows really is awesome and here's why" wasn't going to work because it would only support Apple's claim that the company was boring and business-like. Microsoft needed to do something else to change the tone of the conversation.
It landed on the Seinfeld-Gates ads.
To me, the Seinfeld-Gates ads put the world (and Apple) on notice that Microsoft wasn't a punching bag anymore and they showed that Microsoft was willing and able to change its public image through self-deprecating humor. In those ads, Microsoft wasn't the cunning corporation that wanted to take your money. It was a corporation that could have some fun. For once, Microsoft was able to control the conversation.
"The first phase of this campaign is designed to engage consumers and spark a new conversation about Windows--a conversation that will evolve as the campaign progresses, but will always be marked by humor and humanity," Bill Veghte, Windows Business Unit head said in a memo to employees. "The first set of ads features Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Think of these ads as an icebreaker to reintroduce Microsoft to viewers in a consumer context."
Product marketing without a good public image is a waste of time and money. If consumers don't like your company, they won't respond to your ads, no matter how often they talk about your products. It's as simple as that. And for years, Apple was telling the world that Microsoft was a second-rate software company. Realizing that, Microsoft first needed to repair its image as best as it could and then get down to the business of promoting its products.
That's exactly what Microsoft tried to do. But it didn't use the Seinfeld ads long enough for them to make a lasting impression and it allowed Apple to hold the high ground. Microsoft's new focus on promoting its products is lost on those who are back to believing what Apple says, that Microsoft is still a second-rate corporation. A four-year-old girl using Windows Live Photo Gallery won't change that.
Say what you will about Gates and Seinfeld, but I think those ads actually spoke to consumers and that more were needed to solidify Microsoft's image. But Microsoft pulled the plug too early. According to Microsoft VP Brad Brooks, Microsoft found that "78 percent of people liked the Jerry Seinfeld-Bill Gates spots." That figure doesn't reflect the opinions set forth by most commenters on blogs across the Web. It's quite possible that although there was a vocal minority that didn't like the Seinfeld ads, the quiet majority enjoyed them.
If that survey is accurate, I think Microsoft needs to get back to Seinfeld and start the process over of rebuilding its image. That's the only way to enjoy a positive return on its marketing investment. Just ask Apple for proof of that.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
I don't know which will end up being more effective in the long term but if MS can frame the blogging opinion makers and Apple as elitists out of touch with normal americans then it may work.
Please note: This is just an analysis of the subtext behind the commercials and not a comment on either of the operating systems. If you want to fight about which OS is better please pick a different thread.
And for the record . . . myself and many others I know would step on the Geico reptile in a heartbeat if given the chance. I would feel my life much more fulfilled and meaningful if I never saw another one of those Geico ads again. :-)
The Geico ads, even with the gecko, caveman, and whatnot, went out of their way to broadcast as often as possible that Geico was selling auto insurance, and why it was purported to be superior to everyone else's insurance.
The Seinfeld ads did nothing to tout or sell Windows... at all. You saw a tiny logo at the end of the ad, and obscure references that only a hardcore tech junkie would get, but there was nada in there that Joe Average would garner from it.
Vista's continuing crap sales record is ample evidence of the ad series' failure to get the basic message across (that is: "you should buy our product and here's why..."). Brand recognition is fine, but you have to sell your product at some point.
@rapier1: You can try to frame the Apple users as some sort of boogeyman, but there's a problem with that. Attacking a competitors' product is fine, but attacking a competitors' customers is a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot, and do so in a spectacular manner. First off, you want to win over Apple (and Linux, and etc) users, not insult them. Second, you want to show why your product is superior, not try and concede that the competitors' product is superior by going after its userbase. It conveys that you have no alternative than to attack the users since you cannot attack the product.
I know what you;re thinking, but it won't stick. Apple got away with the "I'm a Mac/PC" ads because it attacked the product (albeit an anthropomorphic one), and did so in a manner that showed compassion and pity for the product (Windows) and its failings. It also portrayed the product (again, not the users, the product) as an immature corporate greedhead. Also, Apple's ads didn't introduce a new concept or idea concerning Windows, but merely amplified and reinforced the public's perceptions of the product anyway.
Now if Apple started belittling Windows users, then the ads would have failed entirely... after all, Apple was trying to woo Windows users to buying and using a Mac. Microsoft is going to be stuck with doing that, in addition to trying to stop the losses it is already experiencing right now.
Nothing has changed. It still stinks! The same operation on a Mac would have been a no brainer.
This kid is the exception, but then that's what Ad.s do - they pick the best possible outcome and use that as an example of the general experience - NOT SO.
If Vista is so good ("our Best OS ever"), why are they bringing out Windows 7, in record time? Vista is a disaster and it's becasue MS doesn't get it. They got the market share years ago and it is that size that has sustained them, and mostly size alone.
I remember when OS X Jaguar was the Best OS Ever. Now it stinks on ice! I still haven't thrown out my OS X Panther
box, the only time I bought an OS separate from an actual computer. THAT was the best freakin' box ever.
It works on an Apple because they control the whole show. Yay for locked down ecospheres.
"It works on an Apple because they control the whole show."
Did Apple create the scanner? If not then they don't control the whole show. The fault lies in the difficult transition from one type of set up for Windows to the next.
In other words, since Windows is switching from Administrative accounts by default to a more limited user account set up by default, it's going to take some adjustment.
However, I'd still go as far as to lay the blame for this on MS. There's been more than time enough to set up the OS in order to be a limited user account base long before it became critical to do so.
Now perhaps we can get back to the article.
You obviously know little about the complexity involved in developing drivers for numerous hardware platforms and OS's. Lets try and paint the picture for you a little better. How many different hardware platforms does the Win family run on? If you haven't the slightest clue go to newegg.com and browser around. Now how many hardware platforms does Apple support? No where near as much. I believe this is what Blackmere was referring to. If Apple opened up their OS run on any hardware platform you'd likely find it crashing and failing to communicate with devices more than any MS OS.
It is obvious you just want to bash MS every chance you get regardless of the facts.
The most overrated "comic" ever. Seriously--this guy wasn't even remotely funny or even interesting.
Besides, Seinfeld is a "has been" (giving him dubious credit for having ever been to begin with).
All this aside, what is the point of this article? I have to go to several other tech now to get most of the other relevant tech news.
So back in September I wrote this (for all of the three people who read it). But I think parts are worth repeating:
Ads are subjective, and what they say to me will likely be different than what they say to you. You can be sure though, that if this much money has been thrown around from Redmond, a number of people probably thought long and hard about what the average person- the one who doesn?t eat/sleep/drink tech day in and day out like me and may actually go outside from time to time- what that person may think. I guarantee you there are more people like that, then like me.
I want to make it clear that I do not have a problem with people having an opinion, but if we?re getting into the ad game let?s call in an opinion that might see things from a bigger picture. It?d be like asking Roger Ebert to give you a review of the new iPod Nano. Sure, I?d be interested, but I?d rather here from a tech journalist instead.
If your main problem is the fact that the "plot appears taken from every sit-com ever made", then I say it?s already more entertaining than a vast majority of ads running out there. Given that the ad rates for the Super Bowl this year (2008) was in the neighborhood of 2.7 million for a :30 second spot, then I?d say Microsoft was at least getting off season rates for their 300+ million dollar campaign.
The fact that they have people talking is the most important part.
Churro's in hand, Bill and Jerry are just hitting the road. Let the campaign go forth, entertain a bit, educate when necessary, and be talked about and remembered. That's what's important at this point.
And leave the ad criticism to the ad critics.
Thanks for letting me post this comment.
The ads proved that Microsoft is human, in that they can make marketing blunders that meet or exceed any technical mistakes they may have made. If that was their goal, then they succeeded famously. - Tim
"If ads are always subjective, then the entire advertising industry has demonstrably wasted billions of dollars. The whole point of an ad is to evoke a response of some kind, and to do so in a predictable and repeatable fashion. "
If they weren't suggestive, we'd havea formula written for an ad by now.
1. Make joke.
2. Show item.
3. Ask people to buy item.
4. Show item again.
5. Close with product logo.
If that were the case we'd never see any Crispin Porter & Bogus ads for anyone because none of their ads are predictable in any way. Have you seen a Burger King ad lately?
The fact is that ads ARE subjective, and the objective is to swing as many responses as possible into positive action. No matter how inoffensive the ad, someone will always be ticked off by it, not buy the product, not like the product, not like the people in the commercial, not like the place of the commercial, etc.
Personally I thought the ads were a little out there for their target audience but there was nothing weird or offensive. Microsoft's embrace of marketing has been odd over the years at best, but we're not the intended targets. I'd rather hear from the average Joes and Janes whom the ad was aimed at to see if it actually worked. Micrsoft obviously let the ridicule of the unintended audience bully them, and that's a real shame for agencies like Crispin Porter & Bogus who do really interesting work with a pedestrian idea.
In any case, I don't see the big issue over either campaign. You shouldn't be letting some commercial tell you what to buy anyway. Decide for yourself people. Who cares what some commercial says, of course they will always bash the competition.
If they were great (or even slightly effective), do you think Microsoft would have pulled the plug so quickly? No, they would not have. And I don't buy the story that they pulled the ads quickly because they were so successful and Microsoft wanted the buzz to linger. That bogus explanation was just PR damage control.
Microsoft just can't be "hip," no matter how much they try. It's just not in their DNA - and there's nothing wrong with that. Every single one of their employees could shave their heads and legally change their names to single letters, but they would still come off as poseurs. Microsoft is not Apple, just as Apple is not Microsoft.
It's just the sad truth. The company that makes your dad's spreadsheet program is *not* going to be the company that hooks you and your teen friends into their "social" music club.
And if Microsoft really wants to "punch back" at Apple, perhaps instead of abstract, feel-good "I'm a PC" ads, or pitiful attempts at humor like the Seinfeld ads, perhaps they should counter the arguments Apple makes about Microsoft in their Get A Mac ads. Like, PCs don't come preloaded with a bunch of crapware. That PCs come with all the on-board software you need to manage your photos, videos, music, etc. That PCs aren't victim to and endless flood of viruses and spyware and driver conflicts. That Vista, by almost all accounts, isn't a steaming pile of digital dung.
Oh wait - they *can't* counter those arguments because they can't factually do so. Ouch.
2) Endles flood of viruses & spyware: Its true that it may not be as secure, but honestly, if the market share was reversed, there would be a lof of Mac OS X security holes found and less of MS. Who knows, maybe not enough to completely turn the tables, but there'd be a difference. Should someone spend money to exploit 1 in 10 computers or 9 in 10 computers? Its simple math.
2a) driver conflicts: First, most people aren't plagued with driver conflicts unless they're buying less than quality products. yes it happens on quality products, but not at an alarming rate like you'd like people to think (yea, post that story about how it happened to you, because that would prove it happens everywhere, right?). Its not a closed system. MS lets other people write drivers. If there's a bad driver, why blame Microsoft? Apple makes the OS & the driver. Of course there'd be fewer conflicts. But you're also not given any choice in the matter. If you want someone telling you what to do, fine, get a Mac. If you want some control in what you're allowed to do, get a PC.
3) Vista *was* bad. I'm not going to deny that. It had a horrible launch and was terrible at the time. NOW however, its on par with XP. Not a great place for the newer OS (it should be better), but Vista is fine unless you specifically need XP and even then, its not cause Vista sucks, its cause whatever third party thing you're using hasn't updated yet. Its not worth it to upgrade XP to Vista. On a new PC however, Vista is more than sufficient.
You're the problem that Microsoft has. You believe so fanatically in what you're saying that you won't even change your mind when reality doesn't agree with you. Honestly, I'm not sure if a commercial can help. Medication maybe...
Some great points
I just wanna point out that things are a lot easier if you have a closed platform, sure its worse for the economy, it would hurt MANY of the current computer and hardware manufacturers if apple had its way. Thats the key difference, closed platform, open platform, its harder to develop for tens of thousands of computers than one or two. Just look how well optimized video games are with their hardware, compared to PC games, if the developer knows the EXACT hardware your going to have it makes things slighly easier.
anyways just wanted to point out that you did make some good points.
There are too many hardware enthusiasts out there to ever even think of closing up the platform. It is also what drives innovation. If we closed up everything who would "the hardware manufacturer" have to out do? Even Apple thrives off the open platform now that they use Intel based hardware. And its is not that hard to develop as long as you use the appropriate SDK's and know what you are doing. Applications faults are usually not the fault of the application itself but the devices and their drivers they are intended to work with.
Sorry, M$; you?re still a punching bag.
Like it's a black mark against their name that they make a profit.
I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but my impression is that MS walked away from the ads for whatever reason. I'm left with the feeling that they chickened out of something that could have been innovative, and overall, that's not a good impression for me to be walking around with.
I have to use Window machines at work. Without hands-on care and feeding, they seem to get slower and slower over the months of heavy use. My Windows colleagues tell me that they have to reconstruct their system instillations every 9-12 months or so to keep things running well. The OS X machines here are far more robust in the same working environment. So, forget about corporate image, the reality is that Windows is hard to maintain and not robust. Fix that Microsoft and people won't be laughing, they will be cheering.
a) "let's try 'something' and sell it as the best of its kind and a whole new direction for the company... if it doesn't work we can throw it out, start from scratch on something else and insist that this is the way we wanted it since the beginning" ....and I'm not just referring to Vista or the ad campaign.... as a .NET developer, look at the changes in data objects from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0... this "theme" is consistent across the board in most of what Microsoft does.
b) Their motive behind the ads was to have a "cool" response to the Apple ads. If someone says they weren't being direct about that then I don't know what's so "indirect" about the "Hi I'm a PC and I'm cool cuz I play basketball/am an actress/am an award-winning hip hop producer/am an average Joe" message.
For more on why I think the ads didn't work (Shoe Circus in particular) IMHO: http://jessicafonseca.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/my-first-look-shoe-circus/
Whatever the Seinfeld ads were, they were not a success and didn't do anything to rebrand Microsoft's image. The fact that it took you over 10 paragraphs to explain why is the perfect reason why. An ad should not need to be explained. It should be simple and to the point and very, very clear. They were anything but. If they were going for the masses and not the geeks...well they failed there too because the geeks are the only ones who read the blogs that explained what they meant.
Microsoft's "I'm a PC" ads are actually good and might work, even if the entire premise is totally false. Apple's ads aren't truthful all the time either, but they work.
The little girl commericial...it's totally...well there are a lot of things wrong with it, but I think it will work. It was simple and it appeals the crowd that Microsoft is targeting.
I still haven't puzzled out the ad that described the Dot Net framework as a way for a company to order light bulbs one at a time rather than by the box.
I have no idea why a company would want to do that, or how any software would enable that. Even for home I usually buy a pack of four, or at least 2 if they're CFLs.
Microsoft, dump the dame who's been doing such a great job at marketing and hire Don instead. Please? Pretty please?
- by MaggieRed February 10, 2009 12:30 PM PST
- Funny, for many seasons, Seinfeld had an old original Mac in his apartment on the desk. I think at some point it changed to a PC sitting there on the desk.
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- by drachimera February 10, 2009 2:43 PM PST
- I am a scientist and a computer geek I have run Sun/Linux/Mac and Windows.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (58 Comments)1) I get the mac-pc adds. I don't always agree with them, but I get them
2) I don't get any of the Microsoft adds.
3) My sister-in-law does the adds for Microsoft, she says they are arrogant and extremely hard to work for.
4) My father, My mother, and My sister HATE vista. Personally, my wife and I love it. Then again I just love technology. I have a hard time explaining to them why this is not so bad and why they should like it... but then I see the problems that happen on their computer (spy-mailware slowdowns and so on... I honestly have no idea how they do it.. it is amazing how good some people are at screwing up computers) Sometimes I feel like saying yah know what.... just go out and get a mac, for what you do, you will really be happier.
So to say people are upset with Microsoft is an understatement. To say that OSX is more advanced than vista is probably accurate (Vista Ultimate is great... but I have myself gotten quite frustrated trying to get Vista Home to do some basic hard drive stuff). I don't even understand what the heck the point is for all these operating system 'levels'.... and honestly I don't care.
Microsoft's problem is they don't have a compelling product. I am a huge fan of Microsoft's new Office... Frigging wonderful! (even though it saves in that stupid format... I can live with that. So Microsoft can make a compelling product... They should run a whole bunch of adds showing how great office is compared to say iWork. Because it really is. Then they need an 'I'm so sorry' campaign to tell people what they have done to make the vista problems better.