Branding experts were scratching their heads today over Microsoft's decision to so quickly abandon a quirky TV ad campaign starring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, with some wondering if that really was the plan all along — as Microsoft insists.
The Seinfeld spots -- all two of them -- have received a good deal of attention. Liked by some and reviled by many, they certainly did what ads are supposed to do: get people talking about you.
But was the idea really to pay Jerry $10 million for two ads and have most of the buzz be about whether the they were effective — rather than whether Windows is effective? Hmmm ...
Many in the blogosphere, including Valleywag’s Owen Thomas, aren't buying the official line:
And the word at agencies seems to be the same. “The creative wasn’t very good,” Douglas Scott, President of Ogilvy
Entertainment tells Wired.com.
Kathy Sharpe, CEO of digital marketing agency Sharpe Partners, thinks Microsoft invested too much money to have planned this switch now.
“They bought expensive media -– the last ad aired opening night of the football season. To do two spots? It doesn’t make sense to me. That last ad only ran one weekend.”
Microsoft has referred to the meandering Seinfeld advertisements as
“ice breakers” meant to “spark a new conversation about Windows.” The new creatives, which are still the work of ad agency Crispin
Porter & Bogusky and begin airing tonight, have a completely different look and feel.
David Webster, General Manager of Brand and Marketing Strategy team, tells Wired.com that Bill and Jerry were meant to reintroduce Microsoft. At the end of the second ad Jerry says that Bill has already connected with over a billion users. Given that factoid, Microsoft now wants to let those users begin telling that story themselves. “From a message handoff position,” Webster says, “we think there’s some continuity.”
Part of the new campaign takes on competitor Apple directly. Riffing off of Apple’s iconic “Mac vs. PC” ads, the new spots feature every day users of Microsoft products, introducing themselves with the familiar phrase “I’m a PC.” In addition to actress Eva Longoria, singer Pharrell Williams, author Deepak Chopra, and a multitude of other average Americans, is a slightly less adorable version of Apple spokesman John Hodgman, who directly take on Apple’s ads, saying: “Hello. I’m a PC. And I’ve been made into a stereotype.”
So is Microsoft done with Jerry? According to someone close to the campaign: “That phase is over. Jerry is certainly a friend of Microsoft, though, so could appear again in the future.”
Says Ogilvy's Scott: "It’s a $300 million campaign. You’ve got to cut your losses while you can.”
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