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Microsoft To Announce Jerry Seinfeld Ads Cancelled
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Sep 18, 2008 05:02 AM
from the put-it-to-bed dept.
from the put-it-to-bed dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Valleywag says the Jerry Seinfeld ads are over — In a phone call, Frank Shaw confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Seinfeld, and echoes his underlings' spin that the move was planned. There is the 'potential to do other things' with Seinfeld, which Shaw says is still 'possible.' He adds: 'People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected.'"
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arcticstoat writes to tell us that in the wake of their largely unsuccessful Jerry Seinfeld ad campaign Microsoft is setting their sights directly on recent Apple ads by featuring the "I'm a PC" character in their new advertising campaign. "He then follows this with another phrase, such as 'and I've been made into a stereotype' before the advert shifts to a range of people performing a diverse assortment of jobs, all of which also say they're a PC. Among those featured are astronaut Bernard Harris, as well as religious author Deepak Chopra and 'Desperate Housewives' actress Eva Longoria. The ad also features a wide range of anonymous people, including a shark diver, a teacher and a guy with a beard."
[+]
News: Maine To Skip Vista, Go Directly To Windows 7 242 comments
Preedit writes "The State of Maine is the latest organization to skip Windows Vista, which has been a near-disaster for Microsoft. An internal state document (dated September 15) uncovered by Infoweek reveals that Maine will not be upgrading its more than 11,000 personal computing devices from XP to Vista — ever. Instead, it's going to wait until Windows 7 ships in 2010 and hope for the best. The news is in line with a survey that shows only 4% of businesses in the UK have upgraded to Vista, the story notes. So much for that $300 million Seinfeld campaign." A commenter on the article makes the point that Maine's signing an enterprise software license with Microsoft means that Redmond doesn't really lose out on this deal; it simply allows the state to upgrade its equipment and software on its own time.
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Penny Arcade called it (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/15/ [penny-arcade.com]
Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score:5, Insightful)
Glad the ads are dead. There's "cool" surreal. (See: Rutger Hauer Guinness commercials [youtube.com] in the late 80's and early 90's) Then there is utterly retarded. That was these.
I never got "Seinfeld" either. I saw a few episodes and it was okay I guess, but I never understood why it became so huge as it wasn't that funny. "No soup for you." Indeed.
Give me "Larry Sanders" any day over that.
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People would have been happier? (Score:5, Insightful)
As if anyone understood the ad at all, let alone were happy about it.
Re:People would have been happier? (Score:5, Insightful)
And Microsoft has never been bad in marketing.
There's been a few disasters in Microsoft marketing in the past, but their track record is usually rather successful. These short series of ads were a failure, I've heard one person ask me "Is that supposed to be their rebuttal against Apple?", and she uses Windows!
Well, they're trying to get their "Windows Mojave" thing to succeed.... but I admit, I don't really see how they can repair damages of Windows Vista purely in marketing.
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Re:People would have been happier? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or having older folks come up to tech guys like me with questions like "Hey,did you see that Seinfeld commercial with that computer guy?" 'Bill Gates and yeah,what about it?' "Well,what does it mean?" like there was some hidden geek code in the thing that only tech guys would understand. Not a single person said anything about Microsoft,Windows,OR Vista.....they just wanted to know what the secret meaning to the ads were. I think because nobody could accept that anyone would spend that kind of money on ads that didn't actually SELL anything.
Me personally,I have to say that for me that have to take the cake as really stupid ads go. I mean,sure that one where the idiot girl raises her arms every 3 seconds to show you her pits is irritating as hell,but at least you knew what she was pushing,but with the Seinfeld ads they could have been for sneakers as far as anyone knew. So unless their goal was to have an entire country go WTF??? I'd say they were a failure. And to replace them with a ripoff of the "Mac VS PC" commercials is just sad. It'll just make them look a day late,a dollar short,and unable to do anything but rip off the Mac. Just sad. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
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I enjoyed them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I enjoyed them! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I enjoyed them! (Score:5, Insightful)
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The ads weren't that great. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The ads weren't that great. (Score:5, Funny)
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Sadly expected (Score:5, Interesting)
I toldja - they shoulda gone with a real comedian. [today.com]
I was looking for them working their way back through the comedic genius of history ... perhaps W.C. Fields next. All the way back to Aristophanes.
Or, in a more famous joke:
"Vista's slow, it's fat, I can't get drivers, my network grinds to a crawl when I play an mp3! What do you call that?"
"... The Aristocrats!"
Re:Sadly expected (Score:5, Funny)
Person: "Then I forced the ethernet-cable in the slot, rebooted while tearing out my nosehairs and slapping my dick at the computer in a vain attempt to feel superior...(5 minutes later)...then I did a defragmentation of the hard-drive but the damn things IS STILL TOO DAMN SLOW!".
Talent-agent: " What do you call that?"
Person: "The Vistacrats".
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Just as I was getting into it! (Score:5, Funny)
Problem was that the sexual tension between those two guys was too intense - it would never have ended well.
Re:Just as I was getting into it! (Score:5, Funny)
Scariest application of Rule 34 ever.
Until Ballmer gets involved...
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Clearly I'm weird. (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought the first ad was limp, but I actually enjoyed the second one and was looking forward to more. Not that it would have made any difference to my OS-buying proclivities, but I thought they were at least interesting.
Microsoft's New Ads Revealed! (Score:5, Funny)
A Chair
VOICEOVER: Vista. Use it. Or Else.
FADE TO BLACK
We win, you lose! (Score:5, Funny)
Made sense to me .. (Score:5, Funny)
It was an advertisement about nothing.
Haven't you guys ever seen an episode of Seinfeld?
Spooked by the commentators... tsk tsk tsk (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll repeat that: Surely they would have known that this brand campaign would need TIME and COMMITMENT to have a payoff!
Maybe at least it's not too late...
Am I missing something? (Score:5, Interesting)
I must be missing something. Cancelled?
Cancelled is what happens when a contract is revoked. As far as I know, Microsoft is continuing with Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Cancelled is what happens if they were planning to make more of the same vein. I see no indication of that, but of the expectant bloggers.
Microsoft had always said [techcrunch.com] that the Bill & Seinfield ads were not a campaign unto itself, but an icebreaker, or rather, "phase one". Indeed, it would not surprise me if Microsoft's announcement was all about the new ads [nytimes.com], and didn't mention Bill & Seinfield at all.
Me thinks Valleywag focused on what they wanted to hear, not what was actually said overall.
Mind Bogglingly Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw the awful Gates & Seinfeld commercial last night where Gates does the Robot, and commented to my wife that Microsoft must have the lowest advertising ROI of all time. It's mind boggling that a company with that much money could do so poorly with their advertising campaigns. They can certainly afford to do better, so why don't they?
It's surprising that Crispin Porter is their agency, since they're about the highest rated in the advertising game. Perhaps it's something about Microsoft that exudes a lameness that overwhelms all else.
Re:Gates and Seinfeld.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:George Orwell and Grammar! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Not unexpected" isn't actually the same thing as "expected", though. The former is closer to "we saw that it could happen".
Put another way, on the scale from "unexpected", through "unsure" to "expected", the former includes everything but the left end, while the latter is only the right end.
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Re:The ads were perfect for Vista (Score:5, Funny)
(Damn Ubuntu fan boys always pointing out how much better they have it;-)
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Re:The Ads Sucked (Score:5, Insightful)
I must say this a hundred times a year.
The largest road in London (the M25 motorway that circles the entire city and has more cars on it than any other road in the UK) has a large warehouse by the side of it (Jct 27/28 if memory serves) which has, in twenty-foot-high letters:
Sericol. More than ink. Solutions.
written on it. What the hell do they sell? *Do* they in fact sell ink? Do they offer "ink solutions"? (whatever the hell they are) Do they sell printing? Do they process squid? I have no bloody idea. What if I just wanted ink? Sod it. It's easier to phone someone else.
About once a week, I'll see a building, advertisment or painted vehicle which is supposed to be drawing my attention to a company, product, or service and doesn't tell me what those products are. These are all examples that I've seen and which are complete copies of an advert, or sign on a van. Some of the product names have been changed because they were SO memorable that I can't remember the exact wording, website, logo etc.
Fred's Services Ltd. Call 0800XXXXXXX. (Services FOR WHAT? And they even paid to have a freefone number)
Adventis. www.adventis.com (I made up the name/website)
Patricks - Solutions for the modern world. (no services, no phone number, no website, nothing.)
(Funny logo) - Ring 08XXXXXXXXX for our full range of services. (no, you bloody print them on the advert, or at least give me a vague idea).
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