Microsoft's new ads: A little too PC?
"I know I said I was going to the party dressed as a clown, but what do you think of this pin-striped suit?"
When you've worked in advertising for a long time--especially if you're on the creative side--you learn to steel yourself to expect anything. Otherwise, your doctors prescribe you far too many strangely-named concoctions, all of them ending in 'zepam'.
Which is why Microsoft's decision to regress its ad agency, Crispin, Porter and Bogusky, back to the mean, is merely another day at the Wishing Well.
It is, however, sadder than seeing Hillary Swank encouraged into the next life by Clint Eastwood.
I find myself trying to imagine all the meetings that led to the brave decision to run the Gates-Seinfeld Road Show, even though the first spot was haltingly spotty. ("You want Bill Gates to be funny? Bill Gates isn't funny, OK?")
Then I envisage the pressure put on Microsoft's marketing department this week by those who always claim to know better, those whom some at Microsoft would describe as "well, the folks who, you know, seem to have been wrong quite a lot."
One might have hoped that those responsible for approving the Gates-Seinfeld spots would have managed internal expectations. You don't create something so radically different and potentially market-changing and expect to be clutching favorable data by the time your CEO has finished dinner. A new ad is not a new Intel chip. (Though I know there are some out there who wish it was.)
The internal tension was made public when a Microsoft spokesman declared that no more Bill and Jerry ads had been shot, while someone from the agency slipped that there is already one more intrigue-filled opus in the can.
That's not to say the two different Microsoft campaigns don't come from the same strategy. Clearly, the idea is to subvert the company's perceived weaknesses.
While Gates and Seinfeld addressed Microsoft's tepid relationship with its customers, the new "I'm a PC" work attempts to declare that "It's not fair! It's not fair! That Apple boy is just a bully! He's not telling the truth, Momma!"
The problem, though, is an emotional change of direction that is more intoxicated than intoxicating. Microsoft has chosen to embrace a vignetty spaghetti--a series of testimonials that is a pair of blue slippers to the Gates-Seinfeld ads' pink Conquistador winklepicker.
As I said in my last post on this subject, crucial to Microsoft's ability to create change is the emotional approach of its ads. The radical emotional switch between the Bill Gates of the Road Show spots and the Bill Gates of "I'm a PC and I wear glasses" makes his persona and the brand's appear just a little schizoid.
Crispin, Porter and Bogusky managed to persuade Burger King to persist with the quite loopy persona of the King character just when so many critics, within the Burger Kingdom and beyond, were telling the agency it was plain weird.
The result of that client's steadfastness (and remember, this is a client who has to satisfy some of the most fractious and recalcitrant franchisees in the world) is not only a re-energized brand, but sales that few could have imagined.
To retire Messrs Gates and Seinfeld after their Lewis and Clark journey has barely left Washington State is to give a sharp poke in the eye to one of the better chances Microsoft has had for radical image change.
With just one "I'm a PC" ad, the company reveals the hem of its powerholism skirts and hopes that a modicum of conventional niceness (after Deepak Chopra and Eva Longoria, who might be next? Michael Phelps and Dr. Phil?) will help it achieve its goals.
Perhaps this was the plan all along. Although it would take a particularly fine vendor of asp oil to persuade me that they intended to present the new, very likable Bill Gates for just a few days.
Perhaps the agency is biding its time before encouraging the client back towards distinctiveness. Perhaps the next "I'm a PC" ads will be more adventurous. And perhaps advertising is simply the most perfect job any masochist could hope to enjoy.
As the Queen Mother would always say when she shook hands with eminently Latin-speaking international soccer players before important games: "Bona Fortuna."
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. 
Which makes me a Bill Gates-hater?
I really don't understand what you're trying to say.
Could you be a little more clear?
Chris
Chris
Get over it!!!!! Its an Ad Campaign...lets talk of something more meaningful....like the fungus in your fingers
I am always open to suggestions as to more exalted topics.
As for the fungus, it's edamame.
Chris
"I'm a PC"... how does that make Vista lovable while encouraging enterprise clients to adopt?
Did any of the PC's in the spot say they were running Vista, or were they happy with XP?
Isn't this the entire point of the campaign?
Ask yourself... Why does Apple have almost 30% of most recent laptop sales? How has this happened?
As for the future... Far more booty awaits yea agencies!
It doesn't all basically suck. Gates-Seinfeld was really, really interesting.
The new work is a little more conventional. And therefore, somewhat less interesting.
Chris
I don't know or care who the writer is. He seems to be writing to his little group of cronies, people
who understand his one-liners. Maybe he really wants to write comedy???
How could one possibly contribute to this dribble?
Im not ad guru here but I know enough about advertising to see that this agency or PC a) hired no one under 30 with a sense of humor b) hired an ad agency that is a has been like Seinfeld c ) had a schizophrenic as their Creative Director. ( no offense meant towards Schizophrenics intended ) but who ever did this new ad campaign is so all over the map they either just went off their prozac last week or currently aren't taking their medication.
Im not ad guru here but I know enough about advertising to see that this agency or PC a) hired no one under 30 with a sense of humor b) hired an ad agency that is a has been like Seinfeld c ) had a schizophrenic as their Creative Director. ( no offense meant towards Schizophrenics intended ) but who ever did this new ad campaign is so all over the map they either just went off their prozac last week or currently aren't taking their medication.
The tough thing with these situations is that both client and agency are under enormous pressure. And they haven't worked together before. The work that comes out is a result of their relationship. And as you know with relationships, some work and others don't.
I did actually like the second Gates-Seinfeld ad.
Let's wait and see what the next 'I'm a PC' ads look like. I agree with you, though. The latest work is very conventional.
Chris
Microsoft, like a bad political commercial, just strikes back at the ad, not its purpose.
- by robstak September 21, 2008 8:48 PM PDT
- Ok.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by ChrisMatyszczyk September 21, 2008 9:32 PM PDT
- Not so sure it's a terribly unconfirmed assumption, Dr. Karl.
- Like this
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(19 Comments)1) I look at it like this: ya know how before the main course decent restaurants will give you lemon sherbet? It's kinda like that, a palate cleaner. The whole net buzz about Seinfeld and the millions of dollars got MS back in the buzz, now they've put up a nice positive ad, without trying to salvage Vista, while slapping Apple in the face wihtout seeming like a jerk; admittedly 'schizoid' but it works, see you just blogged about it... they win!!
2) Clearly this is an editorial column, so it's kinda dumb for commenters to be slamming it so vehemently. you (the guilty) are everything that's wrong with the internet. Everyone is so tough on the internet, and we should clearly all value the opinion of a McDonalds day manager, right? lol.
3) Similarly, the article is really charged, and seems to jump off from a single, unconfirmed assumption. I think you mentioned that you dont know for sure the reason for the abrupt switch.
-dr karl
I was trying to be nice about the fact that Microsoft had clearly not planned for a change quite so abrupt. If they had, they wouldn't be scrambling around with unpersuasive explanations and they certainly wouldn't be putting out information that is then contradicted by their agency.
All in a day's work, though.
Thank you for commenting,
Chris