“While acknowledging Microsoft is in a tough spot in trying to recast Windows after years of attacks from Apple, one ad executive said she is highly skeptical of Microsoft’s new approach,” Ina Fried reports for CNET.
“Microsoft’s latest ad, which starts running tonight, features a Microsoft employee who looks very much like the PC guy from the Apple ads, saying ‘I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype,'” Fried reports.
“‘Casting Microsoft as a victim still doesn’t work for me,’ said Kathy Sharpe, CEO of New York-based interactive ad firm Sharpe Partners. ‘They aren’t victims. Apple just is smarter about this sort of thing,'” Fried reports. “The PC guy in Microsoft’s ads, by the way, is Sean Siller, who has been with Microsoft since 2005 and works as a senior program manager for networking in the Windows Core Operating System Division.”
“Sharpe was also skeptical that Microsoft really intended to end the Seinfeld bit so abruptly. She said that if, as Microsoft said, it didn’t film more Seinfeld ads, it’s probably because the first ads tested poorly. Microsoft insists that the shift was always part of the plan and the initial ads were simply an “ice-breaker,'” Fried reports. “Whatever the case, Sharpe said the Seinfeld bits clearly missed their mark.”
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Avoman” for the heads up.]
Ice breaker? Is that a euphemism for ‘abject failure’? Complete waste of time and money?
Many times in my life I have wondered how someone could be so stupid as to believe that a product (e.g., Seinfeld ad for Windows) was worth the time and resources to develop. How in heck did the first two ads make it through to actually see the light of day?
And yet again, MSFT actions in any endeavor, like these ads, just parallels their whole plan for their OS – no cohesive long range plan or dedication to the consumers, just fly-by-night reactionary copycat imitation of latest tech fad and passe senior management opinions. 2005? They can search the whole company for real geeks and all they can find is a manager that’s only been there for <3 years and probably responsible for the hated Vista OS!!!??? If MSFT has any sense they’d realize the Mac heads taking their money and making their ads are purposefully trying to ruin them with incompetent products – wait, that is the definition of trying to do anything with MSFT.
In the new MS ad some people say “I’m a PC” but why do some sound like they are saying “I’m a pissy”?
Balmer is supposed to be a seller’s world product? Damn it! The whole MS campaign is a perfect marketing error! MS totally fails and misses the point here!
This all thing makes MS look too ridiculous…
Please Balmer, agree with that and take back that money to make a better OS!
The ad shouts this….
“LOOK. SOME PEOPLE HAVEN’T TRIED A MAC YET..!”
Saw the “new” I’m a Pee Sea ad last night.
It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
But the message is pretty pathetic: We’re sort of cool too. We really are!
What is this supposed to be, a feel good moment for victims of Microsoft’s rapacity?
Their first test campaign was “I chose Vista”, but they couldn’t find anyone as a case study.
Their second test campaign was “I chose Windows”, but everyone they chose were already switching to Mac.
Personally, “I am a Parallel” and “I am a BootCamp” (for games)…
“Microsoft will be seen as a victim on the same day Ballmer is mistaken for Brad Pitt.”
LMAO.
The whole affair is ridiculous…
Also
Advertising 101…
Talk about YOUR COMPANYS BENIFITS
Micro$hit is NOT a PC… and never has been. DUH!
Micro$hit makes SOFTWARE, not Personal Computers. DUH!
“I’m a PC”… Isn’t that part of an ad campaign from Apple Inc. DUH!
Again they copy Apple,
and Again they only get it half right.
I must go short the stock.