Am I one of the few people on the planet who actually liked the Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld advertisements from Microsoft? Judging by the multitude of schadenfreude-laden obituaries for the campaign, I'd say the answer is yes.
Were they really that bad? I didn't think so. I saw the company trying to highlight its brand in a new light, using humor and its famous founding personality. I've never met Bill Gates before, but he does have a funny, self-depreciating side, which I first observed earlier this year in his retirement video (see below). The Seinfeld ads successfully brought out this side of Gates, and also attempted to associate those good feelings with the Microsoft brand. They were funny (see example below), and they stayed away from hyped-up product claims. Seems like a pretty smart package to me.
For reasons that would take too long to explore here, Microsoft is a company that critics love to hate. I think that any official effort to make Microsoft look good is bound to be treated with suspicion and outright hostility. This attitude is understandable for anyone that has been burned by the company before, but I also feel that people have to make an effort to judge individual efforts on their own merits, rather than automatically sullying them because of past experiences.
Bill Gates' retirement video:
One of the Gates/Seinfeld ads:
More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:
Comments
I found Bill Gates to be a likable personality in the ads. That being said, I literally squirmed with embarrassment while I watched one of this generation's most important men in history do The Robot.
Some argue that the Seinfeld ads reinforce how "out of touch" Microsoft is with its own users - and people in general - hence the surprise cancellation of the ad campaign which was reported yesterday. Now Microsoft will move into a whole new "phase 2" advertising approach, where the sum total for the campaign (Seinfeld + the new ads) is somewhere in the $300 million ballpark. The new ads sound quite clever, incidentally, going head-to-head against the Apple's "Mac Guy vs. PC Guy" ads, using a PC Guy lookalike.
Did it make sense to try and act folksy in ads promoting nothing? On paper, I can understand the reasoning. But the ads, for me, didn't work. More than anything, they usually left me sitting on the couch asking myself, "What was that for?" The sense I get from the overall vibe in the blogospere is that the ads failed more than they succeeded with a majority of viewers, too. And, yes, I "got it". It just didn't stick.
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