About a week ago, I watching TV and the new Microsoft commercial, depicting Jerry Seinfeld as he comes across Bill Gates buying shoes, came on:
Most of friends had already seen it, and didn’t like it. It doesn’t make much sense and it hardly mentions Microsoft. It reminded me of a lot of viral marketing: it doesn’t make sense, but people sure are going to talk about it. Within hours people across the internet were disparaging the ad–but they were talking about Microsoft. (A few days later I caught the tail end of the next installment in what turns out to be a series of advertisements.)
The key question is, “what is Microsoft trying to sell?” Supposedly it’s Windows Vista. But it seems to me that they are trying to sell themselves; with Google and Apple seen as hip and edgy technology companies, Microsoft might be looking to push into that market. But even with that hypothesis, the ads just aren’t edgy. Seinfeld and Gates can’t do edgy.
Yesterday I came across an article from the Economist that compares the ads to the long-running Apple campaign with a hip, young Mac character and a middle-aged, frumpy PC character, nothing that its the PC character that has won the most affection. Maybe, it turns out, Microsoft is reveling in its awkward nerdery, supposing that that might make it as culturally relevant as Apple’s sleek coolness.
