“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!
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.