“Remember those awful Microsoft ads with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates? Well, now you can forget them,” Owen Thomas reports for Valleywag.
“Microsoft flacks are desperately dialing reporters to spin them about ‘phase two’ of the ad campaign — a phase, due to be announced tomorrow, which will drop the aging comic altogether,” Thomas reports.
“Microsoft’s version of the story: Redmond had always planned to drop Seinfeld. The awkward reality: The ads only reminded us how out of touch with consumers Microsoft is,” Thomas reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention for the heads up.]
In Redmond, “phase two” must follow “number two.”
We can almost hear this pre-launch conversation:
See, we did the Burger King ads, so we know everything. So, what we’ll do is run a couple of indecipherable pieces of crap that are designed to drastically lower expectations.
Yeah, use Jerry as a decoy; pay him big money. Jerry loves cash even more than his Macs; he’ll do anything for it.
So, anyway, then, when it sucks, we “cancel” the whole thing, so when we start running the regular Windows Vista campaign ads, everyone will think the things are as effing brilliant as, uh, Apple’s ads. Or something like that. Whatever. Microsoft’s paying us dump trucks full of cash which means that, after this all blows over, we can buy even more Macs and iPhones for the agency!
Wow, this is staggering. Pulling the plug before the whole saga plays out? What a waste. I was waiting for the Gates-Seinfeld-Ballmer circle jerk in the final episode.
Awww, I was kind of into the schadenfreude of watching those two idiots limp through those ads!
“No soup for you!”
Darn it! Anything that makes Microsoft the butt of a joke is okay in my book. Let em spend the money! It just shows everyone how out of touch Microsoft is.
For us Apple fans, this news is not good. By the way, this post also applies to Ballmer’s retirement when that occurs. Long live Ballmer!
Phase II: Release the hounds.
Bwahahahahahahahaaha!
You can’t make this stuff up.
Phase one was a real blast. I can’t wait for phase two.
This is getting to look like a real comedy, albeit unintentional.
The churros needed more lube for the two buds.
WTF? Microshaft has plenty of money to do proper focus-group studies. I’ve seen what well-done focus group research can do when sharp people are behind them. And I have no doubt that before Microshaft ran these ads, they paid to have focus-group feedback. But…
How can any single company blow millions on a comic and production blow things so badly? I wish I had competition this inept. Apple is so damned lucky. With enemies this retarded, who needs friends?
Another great opportunity for Steve to rev up the engines at Cupertino and deliver a Mac, along with an OS, that is stable, fast, reliable and untouchable by MSoft as it remains distracted with failed Vista and failed marketing.
And, please, please don’t tell me the Mac is already stable, fast, reliable and untouchable. It’s not, but it could be. If only Steve would release his coders from the shackles of the phone and the tunes player so they could make the Mac all it can be.
The result would be fantastic: giant gains in market share and even more giant gains in AAPL. What a buying opportunity today’s price is if only Steve would quit playing around and focus on the tools for big boys.
Yeh-heh-heh-heh-hehessssss . . . this is CLASSic!
So, Microsoft is about to admit that de Seinfeld casting was always DESIGNED to suck!!! Kind of reminds me of de last couple years of his show.
This is de beginning of de end — look for Ballmer to be found in his own Heath Ledger bedroom moment sometime in de next month. Either that, or watch closely to see if he starts letting his fingernails grow to unmanageable lengths and buys a suite in Vegas.
What? Microsoft needs to stay heading one direction for more than two weeks.
The ads weren’t great, but if MS would stay the course, and not listen to everyone’s opinion, the ads might have become –gasp– “classics,” just for their quirkiness.
This company is like a chicken with its head cut off.
Why would Microsoft drop them. They were exactly on target with Microsoft. Particularly the second commercial, which showed how the rich are trying to be in touch with the common man, but in the end just couldn’t relate and wound up treating the commoner’s with disdain, which is EXACTLY how Microsoft how Microsoft is treating the common user, with absolute, complete disdain. How dare the commoner’s want XP. They WILL use Vista, even if Microsoft has to release a virus for XP and turn off the activation servers for XP!
And if the computer or devices you own don’t work with Vista, so what! Buy new devices!
I’m a Mac fan but I don’t get all this MS hate.
Let’s face it. If Macs didnt have Ms Office and Mac MSN I would’ve never switched.
And the fact that you can have xp and osx now…that was incentive for me to try out macs.
I still use MS office on my mac.
Didn’t Jobs, a few years ago, suggest that Microsoft had no style? Well, they certainly proved that point with what have to be the most moronic ads I’ve seen in years. I mean, what was the point? Why is Gates even bothering with Microsoft any longer? Doesn’t he have some kids in Africa to save?
Normally, I’d say “Go for it guys, keep shoveling that money out. The economy needs a stimulus.” But watching those ads was just so … painful.
I thought the next one should have Gene Wilder reviving an inanimate Steve Ballmer on a slab.
Microsoft: “Hey kids! Wooden shoes ARE cool!”
What?
“I’m a Mac fan but I don’t get all this MS hate.”
Then you are four. Good lord.
Astounding. You just CAN’T make this stuff up. I’m laughing and shaking my head in astonishment.
All those billions…….you can almost FEEL the MS monopoly shrinking.
Oh nooooooo!!!! I’m cutting my wrist.
Is this for real or a joke? Rumor? I mean this is just funny as hell if its was true.
I get enough unsolicited email about male enhancement products, now MDN is displaying these ads all over their news pages? What’s up with that? Vimax? Cmon folks.
Pitch:
“It’s a commercial about nothing.”
what?
“yeah- that’s it- nothing!”
They were good for a laugh.
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Too bad the DOJ didn’t have the balls to cancel the MS monopoly.
This reminds me of a Coen movie
Darn it! Anything that makes Microsoft the butt of a joke is okay in my book. Let em spend the money!
In MS’ world, anything that fails is due to lack of spending.
Hopefully they’ll spend at least $600 million on the next phase…
@Modbus
Yep, its why they can keep blowing wads of money on money losing product to corner and own a market. Make stupid ads and not worry about blowing their wads for zero results campaign. Its why they can compete in new markets till they outspend their competition….. good job DOJ. NOT!
Does Seinfeld get paid even if the ads are canceled?
Priceless!!
Damn, all of here are in the wrong business. All we need to do is:
1. Create random, idiotic, one-minute TV spots. Make sure no talent or real effort goes into the ads.
2. Unload the crap on MS for a few hundred million.
3. Enjoy the windfall while MS cancels the ads and gets nothing for their investment.
Brilliant!!
Hey, I was waiting for the next commercial…… 🙁
See, they are generating interest. And don’t they say in Hollywood, “Any headline is good, just spell my name right.”. ?????
I want to see at least 2 more. By then, they will either have a point, or they will be really shown to be loosers.
Just a thought.
en
@stuff
“I still use MS office on my mac.”
Your ignorance.
Not really any of our business.
Vista = Old Coke
Bill and Jerry ads = New Coke
“Phase Two” ads = Old Coke.
( Except both old and new Coke have some taste )
It figures. It was only getting worse. The first one was somewhat amusing, because it was so meaningless and unrelated to Microsoft. The second one (for which I saw two different edits) was just as pointless and not at all amusing. If there was a third one, no doubt it would have been worse.
So what’s “phase two”?
I’m guessing MS got too involved in the project like this perfect example:
CP+B is too good to have done this schlock.
“”I’m a Mac fan but I don’t get all this MS hate.”
Then you are four. Good lord.”
now be nice. he said he uses office. you have to be at least 6 for that……
The giant sucking sound from Redmond is getting louder and louder and those commercials didn’t help.
Wow, I have a feeling that this year’s worst commercials will have a new category leader. Is it just me, or has MS spent the most on advertising in its history for the most forgettable campaigns? There was the “wow” campaign. And, the “where do you want to go today” campaign. And, now the “Jerry and Bill go on a date” campaign. What else was there?
You know, to be honest, I liked the first ad. The second one started out OK, but became so condescending that I was actually shocked.
CROW…It’s what’s for dinner in Redmond
Pity, I was so looking forward to the next episode and the comments here.
@stuff
I’m a Mac fan but I don’t get all this MS hate.
If you are a relative Mac newbie, you are forgiven for not understanding.
For so many years, there was so much Mac hate going around. Now that Microsoft is stumbling, the shoe is on the other foot, and some of us take some delight in beating on MS on their way down.
I’ve been a Mac user since 1984, when the original Macs debuted, and I confess a certain small delight in MS’s misfortune.
<“”I’m a Mac fan but I don’t get all this MS hate.”
Then you are four. Good lord.”
now be nice. he said he uses office. you have to be at least 6 for that……>
Good Lord, people be nice. Not all of us started using Macs in 1984, give us a break.
Do not get me wrong most of us rejoice on Microsoft’s fall all the time but there are MS product that are very very good like Excel in Office fo Windows (not the baby Excel in Office 08 – Mac version). Excel is the best product in the software industry by far. Like all things Microsoft its bloated, prone to crashing but its the best we have.
Pretty soon, the switchers will out-number the original Mac fans by tens of millions, so stop hating.
Let’s see, Seinfeld now collects $10,000,000, goes home, and continues working on his Mac. Now that’s funny!
I think the second ad was seeking to relate
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the reality of Windows Vista with the reality of reality TV.
check this out
http://www.gamerchip.com/microsoft-tv-ads-clone-wars-the-next-step/
Phase II:
Replace Bill and Jerry with PC and Mac from ‘Get A Mac’ ads.
Check into conflict of interest.
wonderful news!!! that’s at least 8 minutes of our lives that are now safe from redmond!!!! those commercials were a dangerous assault on intelligence
Phase I: Bill & Jerry Ads
Phase II: ???
Phase III: Profit!
Well personally I found the pretentious but ultimately substance less “Apple House” and depiction of Steve Jobs as a cranky granny quite funny.
Apple should hire Jerry for one commercial
I’m a Mac
I’m a pc
Hey there’s Jerry coming out of an Apple store (Jerry carrying an Imac)
Just get a new Mac Jerry?
Sure did, just came into some money.
(pc) This is so bad (walks away shaking head)
New commercial…
Announcer: What have you heard about the new M$ ads?
Common person: I heard they were inane, a bit funny but basically pointless. A huge waste of money.
Announcer: We’d like to show you the new M$ ad campaign, it’s call Sahara…
This is a very dangerous move from Microsoft. having 95% of the market, why should they draw all the attention of everyone to their competition? This could cause more people to question whether they should switch to mac!!
What they should do is focus on something positive that they have that Apple don’t (c’mon they have some things!). They’d be much better off with a campaign that INDIRECTLY addressed the negative image – dealing it head on without some substance will not fly in the modern world.
@Modbus
I think this proves – as has Apple’s resurgance – that monopolies are just as fleeting as everything else. Afterall, Vista, these ads and MS’s general behavior are evidence enough that it can destroy itself better than any DoJ judgement could.
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MS’s glory days are largely at an end, and understandably, the company doesn’t want to face facts. When you get big enough, it’s only a matter of time before you collapse inwards.
Like everything else, monopolies have natural ‘lifespans’, so Apple shouldn’t worry that much.
(But I think it’s breathtakingly funny they pulled those $300 million dollar(!) ads so quickly. Go MS! Spend yourself into the red!)
If only MS would be as quick to admit errors for the rest of it’s crap! MS would “cancel” windose! And everything could turn fine! Imagine: a nightmare truning into dream… THAT would be a WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
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These ads must have been approved by senior management. Says a lot for their judgement. Nothing wrong with Seinfeld, the problem is with Microsoft and a complete lack of vision. The ads show they cannot even copy Apple anymore.
Oh darn. Those ads generated some of the funniest threads on forums everywhere. Billy Goat and Jerry’s gay adventures coming to an end? Boohoo, it was morbidly fun watching the train wreck.
Well people are you paying attention? They got rid of Seinfeld, ah but Billy Gates still remains, and yes he will have a sidekick. After all those churros, the long shoe showers, sharing that bedroom together it should be obvious just how fertile and innovative MS will be. We saw part 1, and now there will be a part 2, but it will be during the third trimester that Bill Gates aka Microsoft will show us just exactly the fertile innovation of their system.
Gays around the world will rejoice.
Someday this whole thing will be a textbook case for our kids: How to completely mess up the production and marketing of a new product.
– Spend six years to build a buggy and overweight OS that barely operates on most PCs at time of launch…
– Once the criticism rolls in, blame the PC makers and end users for, essentially, not understanding their shiny, advanced new OS…
– Once the fallout intensifies and becomes fodder (and incentive) for the public to switch to Macs, start to admit their problems but also start an ad campaign to prove to ordinary people that Vista doesn’t really have problems…
– Said ad campaign employs a rigged single-blind experiment devised to show that MS users need to be fooled into admiring Vista’s capabilities…
– Said campaign also tries to go high-concept with a series of ads that use star power but no reference to actual computing activity in the ad to demonstrate, somehow, that MS is progressive… or for the ordinary American… or something.
– MS is excoriated for the first and cancels the second less than 2 weeks after its high-profile launch. And proves to the world, once again, that they just don’t have a clue.
Ah well.. MS might as well write off the 2000s. Maybe the next decade will bring something better.
@Greg L says: “WTF? Microshaft has plenty of money to do proper focus-group studies.”
It is an irrefutable and highly repeatable fact that MS does not care one whit about what the public thinks of them or their products. You have to see it from MS’s POV – “We are the defacto standard for computer networking and desktop computing.” And they mean that across the board – home and corporate. And you know what, they’re almost right – that’s what’s really sad. The only reason they waste time and money running clueless ad campaigns is to appear slightly less arrogant than they actually are.
So here’s a tiny clue for the 90-95% of the desktop computing world, home and enterprise – STOP BUYING MS PRODUCTS – NOW!. And please oh please spare me the whining about how you’d really like to but just can’t, just ’cause. If you’re a dedicated user of any other OS than MS, and your “forced” to use MS products at work, (and here’s the key point), and you’re not making patient and tangible and consistent moves away from MS OS and MS networking products, than you’re just farting into the wind.
I would argue that the world has never ever seen anything like MS except perhaps the Plague, which, by the way, only killed off a third of the worlds population, whereas MS has got almost the entire world by the balls. Everyone, and I mean everyone complains about MS and their products, but the same people keep on buying it. It’s nothing short of insane.
Objectively speaking, even MS could be a decent company cranking out an acceptable mix of great-good, and bad-mediocre products like most manufacturers, but the simple demonstrable truth is that it will never happen – not as long as they are kept in the position of dominance that they are by good people like you and me.
And so I end with the real question, which isn’t simply who has the slickest or wittiest ad campaign – It’s: When oh when is the world going to wake up out of its stupor – really! – when?
good one frank!
“What they should do is focus on something positive that they have that Apple don’t”
you mean like the BSOD? how will that help?
the funny thing is going to be going to pro-windows sites and reading all the posts about how this really has been the game plan all along and they are a huge success as ads and up is down and ignorance is strength….
Phase 2 = Plan B
My intention really wasn’t hatred. More astonishment and sarcasm.
I find a difficult to believe that when you have the most powerful, fastest (but not always funnest) and broadest database of knowledge in the history of humanity at your fingertips that you can’t quickly get, at the very least, a conceptual answer to any question imaginable. Unless it’s rhetorical, of course. That would be silly.
I wonder what will happen to the MS Gates/Seinfeld ads that were shot and haven’t run yet? Some Ad historian in the future is going to have a really fun time ripping MS a good one on what not to do in advertising.
Sheeeeit, Jerry made a cool 10 million for each air commercial. That is 5 million a spot. I guess Jerry’s rates, for doing advertising, are going to go up now (to 5 mill a spot). Way to go Jerry!! Get that big Microsoft Money.
“Sheeeeit, Jerry made a cool 10 million for each air commercial.”
Also known as Ballmer’s Ho Hos ® budget.
“I find a difficult to believe . . .”
s/b “find it difficult” I can always find a difficult.
More coffee. Please continue.
Phase 2 occurs after Ballmer tosses chair at ad leader from phase 1, it hit’s the phase 1 leader and the ad leader, the chair and bits of glass from what’s left of the windows all end up in the parking lot.
So, now MS PR is talking up the big Phase 2.
@ Nick Fury
I thought Ballmer was a Twonky and DingDoodles man. So, he could get more for his budget dollar.
And I might to say:
Sheeeeit, Jerry made a cool 10 million for the two aired commercials. That’s 5 million a spot. I guess Jerry’s rates, for doing advertising, are going to go up now (to 5 mill a spot). Way to go Jerry!! Get that big Microsoft Money.
I didn’t hate the ads as much as everyone else seemed to. They weren’t brilliant but I still actually like Sienfeld. What I find pathetic is for Microsoft to not see their vision through to the end (whatever their vision was for these ads–that I still haven’t figured out).
To be truly innovative you take chances, which these ads did, and you see things through. You don’t let yourself be bullied and swayed by public opinion. I remember people dissing “Think different” saying how it was grammatically incorrect etc. etc. I remember people dissing Macs getting rid of the floppy drive, we know how that turned out.
The problem with Microsoft is that it has no vision and no balls to do anything truly innovative and the decision to pull these ads is an example of that lack of leadership and confidence in what they do.
You do realize that the Office apps were developed for the Mac first right? There was no Windows until Microsoft reverse engineered the Mac back in the day; the Mac was the only GUI around. Many of the heavy duty Windows applications had their beginnings on the Mac.
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where is zune tang in all this?
i want to hear an intelligent rebuttal.
I haven’t read page 2 comments yet but I had to go ahead and say that Frank’s suggested commercial was truly funny.
“I thought Ballmer was a Twonky and DingDoodles man.”
He’s a Twonky but inside of Ballmer instead of a creamy, delicious filling, it’s molten lava, burning sulfur and several hundred cute, furry animals writhing in pain.
Regardingr Mr. Peabody’s advise.
Not only have I never bought an MS product. But, I’ve never stolen any, either.
Here are a couple new tag lines that Apple can use in future Mac/PC ads:
Hi, I’m a Mac, and I’m a POS
Hi, I’m a Mac, and you’re not.
@spark
“circle jerk”
Priceless!!!
The ads were funny but the software still sucks.