Gates outacts Seinfeld in 'Back to the Future'
Some people love it. Some people hate it.
Which is why Crispin Porter and Bogusky, the agency responsible for the otherworldly new Microsoft TV spot featuring the clowning Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, is already happy.
The first aim of any Crispin campaign is to get people talking about the ad. So it seems to be a success. The only real question is whether people outside of the tech world will be talking about it.
Naturally, those in the techie bubble think the work is aimed at them. However, it is really aimed at everyone out there whose warm feelings about Microsoft are only challenged by their warm feelings towards holding their breath till they suffocate.
(Credit: CC bdjsb7)Microsoft wants to believe that power can have a heart. Which is touching for the company, as that is a concept another agency, Wieden and Kennedy, gave Microsoft with its "Where do you want to go today?" campaign.
There is a certain irony for some that the same rational beings who ultimately crushed that campaign underfoot like a paper coffee cup in 1996, are now actually appearing in the new Microsoft ad wiggling their bottom like a tipsy Chief Executive at a Christmas Party.
One can only imagine where Apple might be going today if Microsoft had persevered in creating strong emotional links with its consumers. Where might this new Microsoft work go tomorrow? Crispin has a glorious track record of hitting and missing with its work.
It somehow turned the Burger King regal icon into the most fabulously eerie presence since that greasy-haired man in a beige overcoat who stood on your street corner every day when you were little. On the other hand, it did not succeed with its Man Laws for Miller Lite, nor have its campaigns managed to regain credibility for Volkswagen.
The agency is well known, and it is unclear whether Karl Rove pointed them in this direction, for taking the apparent weakness of a brand and turning it into its strength. So you take the supposedly cold, heartless bloke in the glasses from the Apple spots and you make him a bottom-wiggling Hardy to Jerry Seinfeld's Laurel.
I blundered upon this spot while catching a glimpse of the NFL game on Thursday night and what struck me was not that Bill Gates was a ham-fisted Hamlet, but that Jerry Seinfeld has lost much of the absurd energy that endeared him to so many.
It was as if Mr. Gates relished the thought of rectifying some of his own miscalculations of the past, while Mr. Seinfeld simply sleepwalked a little like John Cleese through the post-Fish Called Wanda part of his career.
The next spot features Bill and Jerry trying to buy Apple Puree from the Soup Nazi. Although, at the time of writing, I am not sure to what extent Mr. Seinfeld and Mr. Gates will be expressing their affection for each other as they wait in line.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
http://www.extremeink.com/awtk/2008/09/explaining-seinfeld-gates-microsoft-ad.html
Last night on the Food Network I learned that Microsoft with MIT is developing a countertop for the kitchen that is intuitive. It will know when you put down a food processor and a bag of flour and "Talk" to you and ask you if you need assistance. You reply you do, and on the counter appears various choices for making bread. No kidding! Also, if you put down your prescription medication and then OTC meds it will tell you if there is going to be a bad interaction between them or if its ok. This is high tech futuristic stuff, alot like what you see at the worlds fairs of past. Not all of it will be in everyone kitchen, but I can see where the ad means if it will cook for you and taste chewey etc. It just might. MIT and Microsoft are doing alot of things together which look like its geared towards homeowners and not just those who sit in front of the PC. It's meant to be interactive in our daily lives. A bit like a Tom TOm or Garmin gets you to your destination.
CHURROS!
So I'm hungry.
Not shoes though - I hate buying clown shoes more than I hate getting a new computer.
Last night on the Food Network I learned that Microsoft with MIT is developing a countertop for the kitchen that is intuitive. It will know when you put down a food processor and a bag of flour and "Talk" to you and ask you if you need assistance. You reply you do, and on the counter appears various choices for making bread. No kidding! Also, if you put down your prescription medication and then OTC meds it will tell you if there is going to be a bad interaction between them or if its ok. This is high tech futuristic stuff, alot like what you see at the worlds fairs of past. Not all of it will be in everyone kitchen, but I can see where the ad means if it will cook for you and taste chewey etc. It just might. MIT and Microsoft are doing alot of things together which look like its geared towards homeowners and not just those who sit in front of the PC. It's meant to be interactive in our daily lives. A bit like a Tom TOm or Garmin gets you to your destination.
Just put Open Source Office on. Works great!
How is Seinfeld and Gates are supposedly to make Vista appear 'here, now, and hip,' a modern evolutionary step in the Windows legacy, is completely beyond me?!!
Not to mention, when is the last time you heard someone talk so much about an ad? Even the Get a Mac ad, for that matter?
Now for"that greasy-haired man in a beige overcoat who stood on your street corner every day when you were little". You're on your own. ;-)
It's a cheap shot, and Matyszczyk only said it so he could parlay this clunker of a insight (if you can call it that):
"It was as if Mr. Gates relished the thought of rectifying some of his own miscalculations of the past..."
Nice try, but you're just as sucked in as everyone else. Chalk one up for CPB, MS, and -- yes -- Mr. Seinfeld.
Wait, what?
John Hodgman IS the heart of the Apple commercials. He's the lovable sadsack. He's the guy you feel for, the guy who always tries so hard but never wins. No, he's not Hardy to Timothy Olyphant's Laurel -- but he IS Costello to his Abbott.
(Incidentally, I had to look up Olyphant's name but not Hodgman's. That in and of itself says something of who the real star of the Apple commercials is.)
The point of this campaign is to combat that image the Apple campaign created that makes Gates look like an idiot and make Gates a real person. And one that is smart and geeky cool and loaded $$$.
btw: Timothy Olyphant is also in Live Free or Die Hard (where you probably made your mistake), but you probably know him better as the Bullock in Deadwood.
Otherwise, I do agree that Hodgman plays the sadsack... a vindictive but ultimately failing little one, anyway. Hodgman does an excellent job of portraying that. Olyphant by contrast is Ordinary Dude, which ultimately gives him the upper hand.
If the next ad features Steve Ballmer I guess that will prove me wrong. But the consolation prize will be, the ad will probably be a lot funnier, though not intentionally.
Last night on the Food Network I learned that Microsoft with MIT is developing a countertop for the kitchen that is intuitive. It will know when you put down a food processor and a bag of flour and "Talk" to you and ask you if you need assistance. You reply you do, and on the counter appears various choices for making bread. No kidding! Also, if you put down your prescription medication and then OTC meds it will tell you if there is going to be a bad interaction between them or if its ok. This is high tech futuristic stuff, alot like what you see at the worlds fairs of past. Not all of it will be in everyone kitchen, but I can see where the ad means if it will cook for you and taste chewey etc. It just might. MIT and Microsoft are doing alot of things together which look like its geared towards homeowners and not just those who sit in front of the PC. It's meant to be interactive in our daily lives. A bit like a Tom TOm or Garmin gets you to your destination.
In the future (pun intended) check these things before assuming you know what you are talking about
Now, I'm not the biggest fan of laptops, but imagine the people that are. They want to take their computer with them EVERYWHERE! Once you consider that the computerized home/fridge/countertop/wall is even a dumber idea then it was before I wrote this paragraph.
Otherwise, I think Seinfeld is just phoning it in.
Apple is getting it right most of the time, because they are paying attention to the youth.
1. Spend money on a marketing campaign?
2. Fix the Shuttle?
One would think the primary goal of a company that produces a product would be for the product to sort of actually.... well... work. Think of the value of a working product with millions of satisfied customers.
When VISTA first came out I loaded it my desktop and found, much to my dismay, that I needed hours to get eveything to work. Dispite my best efforts, I could not run certain apps I needed on a daily basis.
Back to XP.
I waited until SP1 came out and gave VISTA another go. With VISTA back on my desktop, I went to the MicroTek site to load VISTA drivers for my scanner - piece of cake, right? On a clean install, VISTA business, the scanner drivers failed to load properly and froze the system.
XP back on my desktop - I am productive again.
I refuse to waste my time troubleshooting a scanner driver that worked fine on XP. My clients (I am a PC tech) - without me saying a thing, TELL me that they do not want VISTA. They typically say, 'Oh, I've heard that VISTA doesn't work',, 'I've read so many bad things about VISTA', 'Why do I need that?', or, 'My friend has VISTA and he/she hates it'. My business clients won't touch VISTA.
VISTA is my job security for the next 8 years so I'm ambivalent about knocking my potential income stream for many years to come - but this is very sad for a company that produces a product that runs 90% of the computers to be so troublesome. People really rely on computers more than ever. Microsoft is in a very, very bad position, not only for VISTA (God bless it) but think of the next launch of the next OS? How many comedians will it take to sell it?
Where I work, the IT department advised everyone to stay away from Vista because they don't want to support it. Come January 2009, all new PC's will have it, so it's coming down the road, like it or not. I got a Vista Desktop last November and just got a Vista laptop. Vista is going to keep me very busy as an IT tech. Thank you Microsoft for my upcoming income stream!!
not sure why you hear in forums about vista issues, but when i ask around, no problems, or if they do have an issue, its easily fixed.
See really I'm not going to buy a Chevy small block again they came out with the new stamping, and my the cam I put in from comp cam's said it worked with the new block, but frack my lifters are clacking like crazy. Screw Chevy' small block's I'll be a Ford man forever now.
Microsoft: Jerry and Bill? ***? I want to buy shoes....
This is what is wrong with Microsoft. They through large sums of money at problems and don't fix the problem. For all the money they waisted with Vista they could have bought Mac and disturbed OSX on every pc and had hundred of millions left to write drivers. Microsoft office is already ported office on OSX. What was wrong with XP? Nothing that could not be fixed with the waisted money on Vista. Linux runs strong because it is the same OS that started back when Microsoft was DOS. It just keep getting fix, refined, upgraded. As problems become apparent fixes are released and if they cause problems more patches are released until you have a secure, stable and reliable OS. Mac converted to a Unix based OS years ago. They knew most of the web is running Unix/Linux and they knew how stable it was. Mac has followed suite and just keeps upgrading its OS instead unlike Microsoft who tries to reinvent it. OS2, Qemm, Mac were both superior to Windows. How did Microsoft succeed? Dumb people! But after all these years people are getting smarter! Mac sales are getting higher! Buy a Mac or down load Ubuntu! Change the world. Then we won't have to deal with this overprice crap advertisement.
-
by The_Decider
September 7, 2008 8:40 AM PDT
- People can talk about this crappy commercial all day long. It is not going to translate into sales until they fix Vista or replace it with something better like XP.
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
-
by Zaunto
September 9, 2008 10:14 AM PDT
- Indeed.
-
-
Showing 1 of 3 pages (67 Comments)That $300 million would be better spent optimizing and fixing Vista so that IT techs like me don't have to wrestle Vista to the ground and make it do what we want. Yes, Vista is top heavy and tends to run slower than XP (especially on laptop computers), but once you optimize it properly, it's actually pretty fast. I've got Vista Basic running on an Acer laptop that has a 2GHz Celeron CPU, 2GB of Ram and an intel X3100 iGP. I have noted that dual core intel laptops seem to run Vista slower than they should. My single core laptop is running it fine. It isn't perfect by a long shot, and there are incompatibilities with a ton of hardware and accessories out there.
As for the ad, it makes no sense. If you didn't see Bill Gates in the ad or the Microsoft logo at the end, you wouldn't even know it was a Microsoft ad, and that is bad for Microsoft. I could produce a better commercial that would do more for Microsoft than this bad joke of a commercial has done. If the object of this commercial about nothing was to get people to talk, good job guys. We're talking about how the ad SUX!!!