Gates and Seinfeld make ad debut
Posted
Sep 05 2008, 12:40 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Microsoft is paying Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to help promote its Windows operating system. The first one is out (I've included a link below), and you can decide for yourself if it was worth it.
The ad has some cute moments, and it may be considered effective in that it has a lot of people talking today. Is it funny? No. Will it help sell Windows? No.
Microsoft calls it an "icebreaker" to reintroduce itself to viewers. This one wasn't intended to sell Windows. Future ads will use Seinfeld to get deeper into the Windows story.
I've seen plenty of laugh-out-loud videos from Microsoft, and I know the company is capable of more. Perhaps this was an intentionally soft beginning?
Here's what others are saying about the spot:
Between the Lines: "Maybe I’m off base here but I think if Microsoft is trying to engage people with this ad, it has failed miserably. I even watched it several times, just to make sure I didn’t miss something."
Kara Swisher: "It feels a lot like the frequent and excellent Microsoft internal spoof videos Gates does with various celebs. I have always liked them a lot and I like this one too, as it is quirkily charming (or is it charmingly quirky?)."
TechCrunch: "These ads can’t be all tech or they’ll lose the audience. But I can’t imagine this will sell software, either."
Silicon Alley Insider: "As commenters rightly point out, the brand ad is getting its primary job done -- getting people to talk about Microsoft. And since many people think it's "cute," even if not laugh-out-loud funny, hard to see that as a bad thing."
Disclosures: I don't own shares of any companies mentioned in this post. And while Microsoft owns this blog, Microsoft does not control, censor or otherwise have any editorial influence over what I write.
