The First Bill Gates + Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft Ad Makes No Sense

http://gizmodo.com/5045703/the-first-bill-gates-%2B-jerry-seinfeld-microsoft-ad-makes-no-sense

by nickb • 18 years ago

35 64 18 years ago

river_styx• 18 years ago

It's nonsensical, unfunny, and just lame. Sorry Microsoft, but you will never be able to catch up with Apple culturally.

volida2• 18 years ago

try understanding the ad. it's actually a very smart ad

Kilimanjaro2• 18 years ago

Oh I see, so the ad is targeted to mensans only?

fauigerzigerk3• 18 years ago

I think that's exactly the point they're trying to make: We may never catch up with Apple culturally, just as Warren Buffett may never catch with some sleek hedge fund type culturally. We're normal people, but we're still kind of funny and get things done (such as earning a billion or ten) without worrying too much about fashion.

sdurkin• 18 years ago

You can almost hear the money being flushed down the tubes.

JeremyChase• 18 years ago

I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but I liked the ad. One purpose of media is to get people talking, and there is plenty of buzz about this advertisement.

Jer

acesamped3• 18 years ago

Have you guys watched the Seinfeld tv series? Its really the same kind of humor. lol. I found it funny

As much as we may hate to think it, in the end, I think Microsoft wins again because we DID watch the ad didn't we?

Jerry and his comedy is the bait.

We now know microsoft is up to something "delicious." whoopie.

Dobbs• 18 years ago

I think Microsoft wins again because we DID watch the ad didn't we?

The problem with your statement, is that watches mean nothing if they do not sell the item. Selling the item means nothing if people don't view the ad.

One does not work without the other. In this case its getting views but its not selling, educating or performing anything to those views. This ad is nothing but empty views.

acesamped3• 18 years ago

Honestly, I think no matter what we do we are doomed to be consumed by microsoft. I love linux. I have some friends who are staunch Mac users and others who eat, sleep, and pee linux. All of them have microsoft products on their computers. Schools, offices, homes, microsoft is everywhere all over the world.

The sad fact is that pc's are cheap and most people (general population) are lazy or uninterested in installing (or even learning about) other operating systems.

The product is sort of forced upon us. All we can really do is cope.

It seems like a lot of people upgrade their windows operating system when a new one comes out (except with vista because of all of the bad reviews).

andreyf• 18 years ago

The problem with your statement, is that watches mean nothing if they do not sell the item.

Ads aren't just for selling stuff directly. This ad doesn't sell anything, it changes brand image.

halo• 18 years ago

Their product is on 95%+ of a huge market worldwide and everyone already uses it and knows about them. They don't need to sell their core product as the OEMs do it for them, and I seriously doubt that their commercials have any real impact on their sales.

The thing is Microsoft have succeeded despite their brand rather than because of it, and the company have long been demonised and seen as the convicted monopolist and stuffy and corporate. Notice how the Microsoft brand is played down on both the Zune and Xbox 360 sites for example.

Trying to humanise the company and making them seem less corporate by giving them a friendly face is probably a good thing for their brand in the long term, will make people associate with their brand more positively and in my view is certainly a better direction than yet another Vista campaign that will do little to raise awareness further and shift very few copies.

joshu2• 18 years ago

I certainly hope not.

volida2• 18 years ago

for those that didn't get it:

the ad shows a normal conversation between two people. it wants to show that pcs are for normal people. this is achieved because it makes you think: hey look here are two famous people discussing something normal...

that's the thought that runs in your subconsious and thats what microsoft wants, where instead the message of Apple ads is hey "we use mac, we are better than you" bullshit...which apple's message is annoyingly imprinted in their users mind, reproduced in an annoying way by most of them.

chaostheory2• 18 years ago

"the ad shows a normal conversation between two people."

maybe if those 2 people lived in the world of seinfeld it'd be normal... but I didn't feel it was very normal; it was weird like the sitcom

hmmm to me the message of the Apple ads isn't 'we are better than you', it's more like 'why put up with this crap anymore? life can be easier if you try something new'

swombat2• 18 years ago

That was most definitely not a normal conversation.

ars2• 18 years ago

The only thing I was thinking while watching it is:

What in the world is bill gates doing in a shoe store? (Everyone knows he's a billionare.)

And: Why was seinfeld acting like his servant and/or worshiping him.

mixmax2• 18 years ago

If you have to explain an ad then it has failed.

fauigerzigerk3• 18 years ago

An ad that people talk about cannot have failed. Whether that talking is explaining or not doesn't matter.

dejb• 18 years ago

You obviously don't buy into the whole idea of the subconscious. If you have to explain it FOR it to work then yes it has most likely failed. But whether or not you have to (or even can) explain WHY it works is a whole different thing.

BTW I'm not sticking up for the ad. I doesn't do anything for me.

Kilimanjaro2• 18 years ago

Normal conversation is what people outside the window are having.

dotcoma3• 18 years ago

do normal people want pcs for "normal people"? Like, didn't it use to be that teens wanted to be or at least look older, married men wanted to look single, 30 years old women wanted to play lolitas once again etc? But now, "normal" people just want a brown box with a stupid OS just like everybody else. Really? Are you sure?

snprbob86• 18 years ago

I guess they feel the first step towards humanizing Microsoft is humanizing Bill Gates.

ars2• 18 years ago

Funny, I watched it and I though:

I guess they want to start the hero worship of bill gates. (Mind meld? A sign from above? Running into a store to be a personal servant?)

omouse• 18 years ago

Sweet where do I sign up? Bill Gates dresses better than Steve Jobs, it's true, my coffee told me so.

rglovejoy• 18 years ago

The reason the ad makes no sense is that it is about nothing.

acesamped3• 18 years ago

seinfeld humor. "Its a show about nothing." (like everyday life nothing).

ShardPhoenix• 18 years ago

Thank god you're here to save us, Captain Obvious!

mdasen• 18 years ago

I don't know what you all are talking about: clearly this is just a teaser ad for Microsoft's new Edible PC. It comes in three editions: moist ($100), chewy ($150), and moist and chewy ($350).

swombat2• 18 years ago

Don't forget Ultimate Moist and Chewy ($500) and Enterprise Moist and Chewy ($750)

Andys• 18 years ago

And thats just the 32-bit range. Don't forget Moist and Chewy 64 bit edition - twice as crunchy.

kul• 18 years ago

we're all talking about it

rms3• 18 years ago

I thought this was great. Surreal seems very appropriate.

trominos• 18 years ago

Did you guys see Bee Movie? Did you see the Jerry Seinfeld ads for it?

Compared to the BM ads, especially, this is pretty funny. (I actually think it's decent on its own, but I've always been a big Seinfeld fan.)

It doesn't do much for MS's image, though, as far as I can tell. I thought Bill Gates was already popularish? The problem is the company.

kajecounterhack• 18 years ago

I don't understand why Microsoft needs to advertise on TV...most people I know don't see it on TV and use windows anyway.

brandonkm• 18 years ago

I think the ad is rather brilliant. The whole "wtf" vibe is what they were going for. You have to always remember that this ad and the followup ads are part of a much larger campaign that is basically going to be a saga of microsoft advertising. Think of this as one of the first few pages in a chapter within a long book.

tialys• 18 years ago

The 'wtf' vibe is also generating all kinds of noise about the ad. Every Mac related website in my RSS feed had an article about it, and it's on every news site I visit. The average consumer may be slightly confused, but the internet large is having it shoved in their face. Isn't that what you'd want with an aggressive ad campaign like this?

ca98am79• 18 years ago

yeah maybe - but from a purely humor standpoint, it wasn't that funny

I prefer "wtf" AND funny, like these skittles commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUJ4uorYPoY

jhickner• 18 years ago

The ad is brilliant, but it's even funnier how many people don't seem to get it.

(full disclosure: I loathe MS as much as anyone)

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

I would agree if it were funny. It's really not.

And people stopped reading long books 10 years ago. Now it's all Dan Brown type crap you can polish off in a day.

vaksel• 18 years ago

sure it does...it says: "look at us, we are microsoft, we have a ton of money"

Angostura• 18 years ago

My main thought watching the advert was, "that's sad, Bill Gates steps down from running Microsoft, and now spends his time in discount shoe stores?"

I'm honestly not trying to take a dig at the ad, but it did feel rather tragic.

mixmax2• 18 years ago

This reminds me of the huge campaign they ran a couple of years back, the one with the dinosaurs, I'm sure you remember it. The idea behind it was that a load of people in offices ran around with dinosaur heads. The point of the ads were that you were a dinosaur if you didn't upgrade to the new office.

However what the ad accomplished was that Microsoft got associated with dinosaurs - they managed to brand their own software as old and cranky.

I was absolutely flabbergasted that a company with that kind of resources couldn't at least find an intern to tell them that this was a really really bad idea. This looks like more of the same...

jgamman• 18 years ago

i liked it. it reminded me of the way william shatner has reinvented himself by hamming up his old cliche. he is now way more interesting. if bill gates could PR himself the role of 'PC genius doofus dropped back into normal world' with the help of some off the wall humour of JS - i think this could be a really interesting ad-war.

watmough• 18 years ago

Yeah, maybe John Hodgeman could be tapped to play the part of the doofus.

I'll await further installments with interest. Maybe someone a bit more young and trendy could be be picked to play alongside the Gates / Hodgeman PC-analog...

rrf• 18 years ago

Spending $300m on an ad campaign to inspire consumers to reconnect with Microsoft not only feels desperate, but seems such a waste when it could have been channeled into making better products or hiring better hackers.

JoelSutherland• 18 years ago

Microsoft is spending all kinds of money on both products and great hackers already. The biggest problem they have is their overall strategy.

With the cash they have on hand, I have never understood why they aren't doing more parallel development in smaller groups to let the good ideas happen organically. They continue to try to fit every new product into the existing Microsoft ecosystem -- something that is beginning to fail.

pwk2• 18 years ago

"They continue to try to fit every new product into the existing Microsoft ecosystem"

As companies get both bigger and older, internal politics seem to have a larger impact on company policy. There are surely many Microsoft employees who have a vested interest in keeping things exactly how they are, investing money and resources in existing projects that maintain or expand their power base, regardless of the benefit or lack-thereof to the company as a whole. It's a type of corporate inertia that's difficult to overcome once in place.

dotcoma3• 18 years ago

beginning to fail?

it has failed. big time, too. do you want a Zune? ;-)

jmtulloss• 18 years ago

Microsoft just took the cream of my graduating class. Their college recruiters are amazing.

rms3• 18 years ago

This advertising campaign will be a great critical success. It's a sublimely entertaining advertisement and a really nice thing to do for Bill Gates. This 300MM blitz will really humanize Bill Gates to the TV watching public.

Of course, even the best advertising company can't save Microsoft. They need a miracle.

How long do you think it will take for the market cap of Amazon and Google to surpass Microsoft? In 100 years and beyond, Microsoft will disappear and Google will achieve immortality, at least until we abolish capitalism.

pwk2• 18 years ago

"In 100 years and beyond, Microsoft will disappear and Google will achieve immortality"

I suspect that, in a mere 25 years, Google will get the same respect that Microsoft does today (ie some, at least from some quarters, but much less than heyday levels). Some young bucks will come along with the same combination of smarts and business savvy and build the next big thing, and lots of the bright people currently at Google will have retired or moved on to other things.

rms3• 18 years ago

Sure... I suspect that the market cap of Google will have surpassed Microsoft in 5 years. Amazon, in 25. In 100 years, Microsoft will certainly be entirely irrelevant if not completely gone.

caveman82• 18 years ago

Since when do ads need to make sense?

senthil_rajasek• 18 years ago

Can buying a shoe that fits your feet be so difficult? Actually it is, for me at least... Personally, for me it is the shirt. Even if you find a shoe that fits you there are onlookers criticizing that its not the right fit for you.

Now, how about getting the right operating system for your personal computer? Can some company satisfy every customer find their perfect operating system?. Its a challenge, I would say... and then there are some who want it moist and chewy, not dry and crunchy.

Just my interpretation and a thought that crossed my mind as I was trying to download a patch for my machine...

joshu2• 18 years ago

I am infinitely freaked out by the text "delicious" at the end of the clip.

The First Bill Gates + Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft Ad Makes No Sense

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