People at Microsoft that I trust are saying that it has absolutely, positively, definitely (really) always been the plan to have Seinfeld appear in just the first few warm up commercials for their $300 million Vista ad campaign, and then move on to the meat of the messaging. And I believe them, with the appropriate wiggle room (like if the ads were super well received, they may have exercised an option to keep him longer, etc.).
But either way, Seinfeld is out, at least for now, after three controversial commercials (first, second and third). Microsoft won’t confirm Seinfeld’s rumored $10 million fee one way or the other. And they say he may be back later in the campaign.
But starting tomorrow the ads go on, without Seinfeld.
Behind these advertisements is the advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which Fast Company said is “is famous for pushing clients to the edge.” The firm did amazing work for Volkswagon, Burger King and others (and the subservient chicken remains awesome).
But their 2007 work for Ask.com was really just exceptionally bad. The company budgeted a $100 million to a campaign that included strippers with swords (here’s the video), urine-themed display ads, and the Unabomber.
Not only were the ads bad, they didn’t generate any traffic for Ask. The campaign was terminated just $15 million in, says one person with knowledge of the relationship.
The Microsoft ads aren’t as patently offensive as the work produced for Ask, but they did go out of their way to highlight the fact that the company was out of touch with consumers.
Bill Gates: Why are we doing this again?
Jerry Seinfeld: Why Bill? Because as we discussed, you and i are a little out of it. You’re living in some kinda moon house hovering over Seattle like the mothership. I’ve got so many cars I get stuck in my own traffic. We need to connect with real people.
Microsoft says that they’re sticking with Crispin and that the advertisements are going exactly as planned. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
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I forget, why do we hate Seinfeld?
We don’t, we hate microsoft.
most of us don’t, we hate haters like you
Don’t hate him… I just never found him to be funny.
I was merely perpetuating a joke of hatred solely based on America’s common distaste for Monopolies (google aside). I use Microsoft’s products on a daily basis and have found no real issue with anything they produce… next to their awful ad scheme that doesn’t make any sense.
I can’t believe this is the third story on TC about these ads. Part of MS’ budget must be to pay off some high profile blogs to talk about them.
These ads are seriously terrible. I don’t understand why we are talking about them.
In a sense its great negative publicity, atleast it has people talking - maybe thats what their strategy was - who knows! my choice still depends on what my wallet can buy and not what the ad is selling!
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but the commercials had so little effect on me that I can’t even remember what they were about. It says something in it’s own right, that Microsoft has to run commercials. Perhaps Gates and his cohort should just take their money and close up shop. The cloud is spreading fast and Microsoft doesn’t seem to be a real part of it.
I think this was intentional.
I don’t know if it is like this everywhere, but here there are two Microsoft commercials running: the Seinfeld ones, and this other one about “Microsoft Caribou” or some shit, doing a “We secretly replaced Vista with Folger’s Crystals” play by telling people it was the next version of Windows. People would ooh and ahh over it, kind of like the campaign where people are served Pizza Hut or Carl’s Jr. in a restaurant.
My interpretation is that the Seinfeld campaign (and the Gates campaign, if he continues without Jerry) is intended only to create warm feelings about Microsoft and a positive image for BillG in his dotage.
So while the Seinfeld/Gates is making M$ the feelgood hit of the late-summer, they run a slightly more technical ad for Vista. Ironically touting that people like Vista as long it’s called something else, the slightly-more specific Vista ad gets bleedover “YAY!” from the Seinfeld one.
At least that’s my take so far.
@EH - “intended only to create warm feelings about Microsoft and a positive image for BillG”
Except that this is extremely unlikely to work. They are trying to move from “The Powerbroker” archetype to “Buddy”/”Little Trickster”, that will take a lot more than a handful of ads. Find out more here:
http://businessmindhacks.com/p.....-on-a-dime
What if they’re not trying to change the brand “on a dime?” It’s a 300MM campaign, so how are we to conclude that if the beginning was not successful (which seems to rely only on anecdotal evidence)?
Yes, at $60 billion revenue this fiscal year, they are doing so horribly they need to close up shop.
I always wondered who made those stupid Burger King ads, never thought it was worth googling it; no wonder these Microsoft ads are so lame!
Crispin does seem to follow this common theme of crappy camera work and casting normal people - when I turn on my television set, I like to see something more appealing!
they could have spent that money on giving away free xbox360
that would have been a hell of a pr move
30k xbox360
Nah, since half of them would break within 6 months, it’d turn into a huge storm of negative PR.
lol red light from hell
They should cut Bill Gates from the ads too - it’s not like he’s funny…or helping sell Microsoft product
He’s the product.
Indirectly he’s the product, I guess…but either way, he’s boring - and doesn’t sell.
so they should cut him from the commercial
It’s still the beginning of the campaign, give it some time. By New Year’s your elders are going to be asking you what you think of that Bill Gates and “isn’t he just SUPER?” Watch, I’m betting they convert him into a sympathetic character over the next year or so. Throw in a periodic Oprah visit to talk about Malaria and he’s in like Flynt.
Arrington, you always believe M$, HaHaHa
There is no way on Earth that they started a 300 Ad campaign paying Seinhasbeen 10 million for just a few ads to switch to other ads with little tie in! If you believe this I have a bridge to nowhere to sell you!
Let’s be honest, even if M$ won’t. The ads totally sucked wind, few people liked them, they did not sell Vista, and they were rightfully canned! I bet the genius that came up with these ads is looking for a new job. Maybe TechCrunch can hire them. Since they have such great ideas and writing skills, it may be an improvement!
With all the bull that people claim about the Apple ads, seems they connected with “real” people and they sold a lot of Macs and caused M$ to spend 300 million to try desperately to slow their growth.
I would love to see Cramer instead on these ads or how about George !!
I’m in the minority here, I’m sure, but I liked the ads. They’re not going to make me run out and buy MS products, but they did give me a nicer ‘feeling’ about MS. Seeing Bill in ‘normal’ situations, and the dryness and absurdity of the situations made me smile/laugh a bit. It’s not changing my view of MS all that much on its own, but they were still well done imo. To drop Seinfeld so quickly seems a mistake. I was rather hoping he’d be the new ‘face’ of MS for the next few years.
I agree. I think the ads are pretty amusing. They’re not rolling-on-the-floor-clutching-my-sides funny, but I like them.
I think a lot of people made up their minds once they heard about the ads, and stuck with it.
ditto, i thought the ads were funny, offbeat, and self-knowing in a good way. never imagined you’d get one of the richest, nerdiest guys in the world to sashay his hips in order to adjust his underwear. or the bit about the daughter torpedoing them by stealing the giraffe & framing them for it. awesome.
can’t believe they dropped seinfeld… this whole thing was just getting rolling.
oh well. at least we’ll always have those Conquistadors. (they run tight)
LOVED the ads. HILARIOUS!!!
i reckon they intentionally made them bad… heres why. Microsoft already had a bad perception due to Vista problems. the ads have fuelled this but also taken the focus off their products onto their ads. if they can do some further ads that actually impress people , and get them talking about how good the ads are it will be successful in changing perceptions. ie easier to change peoples opinion of an ad than their actual product.
2 stories on the same topic same day? This other article makes it sound like it really is some cover up and they axed Jerry…
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....mmercials/
As an expert in advertising, marketing, research, branding and target audience that I am NOT, I can definitively offer my confirmed analysis on the reason this campaign is tanking. And that reason is:
“Crispin Porter + Bogusky”….or should I say “Kripsy Potty + Bogus”
Mark my words, the Vista campaign will not feature any sign, shape or form of a Windows OS. They might show us another Marihuana-Induce graphical view of the Zune, or maybe a thong-clad wookie killing Halo’s Sarge with it’s bare hands while managing an SQL database.
Maybe if they had used Kramer or George.
George!!!
Can you imagine George Constanza and Bill gates together???
Wow…tripping out on my own karma here….
mike,
Advertising is one of the most important factors of the whole valley economy right now-we know it works sometimes better than not , they only do it for their manufacturers anyway- but, in the end vista is just bad. its part of the reason the x and y gen attract to mac. its not only that macs are better, its that the alternative is annoying. our election is becoming similar-
- even the ads pitching a terrible product, that you have almost no choice but to choose from, especially at most common price points, will be arriving soon
I can hardly wait to see what’s next….
“People at Microsoft that I trust are saying that it has absolutely, positively, definitely (really) always been the plan to have Seinfeld appear in just the first few warm up commercials for their $300 million Vista ad campaign”
The question to ask your sources is: did you plan on only running them for 2 weeks?
They’re only like $15mil into the campaign so far. This is just the beginning, the set up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re setting BillG up as a kind of mascot where he makes appearances now and then, like Dave Thomas in the Wendy’s commercials. And I’m not surprised that it’s getting bad reviews. It’s the intro to a whole campaign that will last perhaps a year or more, so of course they want to get peoples’ attention. No such thing as bad publicity, especially in advertising.
I don’t see how that comes close to my addressing my question. Ads get run for months. You don’t introduce a campaign with a completely unrelated concept that’s only seen for two weeks. The only attention this is getting is from tech blogs, and the attention is a reaffirmation that Microsoft has no clue what it’s doing.
Pitching this as a disconnected, temporary intro doesn’t bolster their campaign: it tells me it’s a complete mess.
Most of the “normals” I’ve asked didn’t see them, didn’t realize they saw them, didn’t know it was a Microsoft ad, or thought it was weird, boring, or insulting.
So we’ve got a couple of ads that were poorly received, the Mojave experiment which is low quality, insulting, and laughable, and ads that look like they’ll be a copy of both Apple and HP ads? Give it a year! Yeah, it takes a while even though we’re going to bury the ads after two weeks. Sure.
You don’t introduce a campaign with a completely unrelated concept that’s only seen for two weeks.
Agencies most certainly do. Frex, Levi Strauss had a campaign about 10 years ago comprised of a series of connected vignettes, probably a three minute piece in total. These vignettes were shown each for a short time. Two weeks, maybe a month. They were shown out of order. After they had all been run individually, they were run concurrently, always out of order and you were only ever seeing a disconnected portion of the story. This created a challenge for the viewer to put the story together in their own head, thereby cementing the viewer’s awareness the brand that much more.
So we’ve got a couple of ads that were poorly received
Much as I appreciate the survey of the local “normals,” I’m gonna have to quibble with your methodology.
I think it might be intentional that the Seinfeld run be unobtrusive. For people who know “Start Me Up” Microsoft and “Developers!Developers!Developers!” Microsoft, this invisibility is a major statement for them. That there is drama about it being undramatic is even more telling about it’s effect: it’s having one.
The only attention this is getting is from tech blogs, and the attention is a reaffirmation that Microsoft has no clue what it’s doing.
The campaign has been super secret and was announced only three weeks ago. We have no idea what Microsoft is doing, much less to be able to judge it.
you could see this going in, the first interview with crispin at the time of the announcement … big ego, no brains … i commented about it here at the time … companies need to use their intuition more
Typical stupid Microsoft. They can’t build any good products so they have to hire celebrities to endorse their wares. Apple’s commercials work so well because this just tell the truth: Microsoft products suck and are for losers, and Apples products are great and for cool people. Instead of trying to advertise their hopeless products, Microsoft should work on hiring some real engineers, and put Bill Gates out to pasture (he hasn’t contributed anything worthwhile to the tech industry for the last 10 years). I would rather eat a pot of dead mice than use Microsoft products.
we all ignore Jason S comments. he is a garden variety apple fanboy who repeatedly posts variations of the same idiotic comments.
Jason, you’re blind to innovation, the industry and the value of good software. Pull your head out and realize that the world doesn’t run on apple software; it’s Linux and Microsoft. Fill up that bowl buddy, I’m guessing over half of the web sites you visited today are running on MS software.
Nom Nom Nom…
Apple barely runs on Apple software. It’s mostly BSD. CUPS, Apache, amirite?
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Does it support Seinfeld ads?
Sad, I liked the direction they were going at with the new ads. Subtle yet intelligent … not your typical main stream Super Bowl commercial though.
Arrington: “People at Microsoft that I trust are saying that it has absolutely, positively, definitely (really) always been the plan to have Seinfeld appear in just the first few warm up commercials for their $300 million Vista ad campaign, and then move on to the meat of the messaging. And I believe them, with the appropriate wiggle room (like if the ads were super well received, they may have exercised an option to keep him longer, etc.).”
—————————
Let me guess, Michael… You received a call from Microsoft today sometime after the first post about axing Seinfeld, and they weren’t happy…
So not only are the commercials about Bill Gates’ butt-crack a PR disaster, but even the cancellation has turned into another PR disaster. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving company. The number one propagandist on the internet tries it’s hand at “honest” advertising and gets handed it’s butt.
Microsoft: Just stick with Thurrott, Enderle, Wilcox, Scoble, Nocera, Krebs, Maxcer, Bott, Swisher, Paczkowski, Kahey, and the 500 other internet shills you employ.
“Crispin Porter + Bogusky” have lost their momentum.
dude - all of us nerd bloggers said the same thing. we were _so_ right.
The thing is - at the end of the day, these ads have in a way already completed their objective. Sure Microsoft shows up 87million times a day in the advertising and blogosphere(s), but not as much as these ads have sparked conversation. Whether you like the ads or not, want to see Jerry replaced with George (a move I’d love to see, but probably won’t happen), they’ve started a conversation, and it’s not the ‘vista is crap’ conversation.
So really…the way I see it - Crispin Porter and Bogusky - mission accomplished!
This is exactly right. I think the point is just to associate Microsoft with anything besides ‘crap.’
there are an estimated billion impressions for the ads…it is mission accomplished for the first part. it is no fair to come to a conclusion before u see the other ads
seinfeld
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I don’t like Crispin - those guys are cut-throat.
Crispin need The Barbarian Group for the Subservient Chicken — they didn’t, and couldn’t, do it on their own. That said, the Crispin that with the chicken are long gone, replaced by the former glory that was CP&B
TechCrunch readers apparently are not like the rest of America. They must be as out of touch as Microsoft. The rest of the world that does not contain Microsoft lovers or tech savvy people, or people that have a more mainstream taste obviously found these ads stupid, unfunny and they did not work to sell Microsoft or any of their products.
I see the ad agency kept the account. I bet this is so Microsoft can tell all of you that “this was all planned.” They actually paid Jerry Seinfeld $10 million for three weeks work, to launch new ads with little or no tie in to the original ads.
What is funny is Arrington believes them, HaHaHa. Now they will launch a Hodgeman look-a-like to say “I’m a PC and I have been stereotyped.” Lame! Makes Microsoft the second class product out of the box in their own ads.
This only goes to show how completely out of touch Microsoft is with consumers.
I think the ads had promise for one reason — my non-techie wife saw the 2nd ad when I was in another room and said, “You know, these microsoft commercials are kindof funny.” That’s good enough for me.
–jb
Man there are a lot of valley bubble morons on this site. YOU are not the market….I think the ads are cleverly self deprecating and that they do begin to setup Bill (one of the worlds most recognized names) into a powerful and trustworthy evangelist.
Agreed.
Ads Not Canceled … Thankfully. Looking forward to next episode.
http://gizmodo.com/5051682/mic.....t-canceled
I like Seinfeld, don’t really care about Microsoft, don’t know if this would sell Microsoft, but I’d watch the commercials.
HAHAHA. This is almost as good as when CP+B launched the Orville Redenbacker campaign with a re-animated, Stephen King version of the man by the same name. Nothing says buttery-fresh popcorn like an unearthed cadaver.
These commercials remind me of the final episode of the Seinfeld show where the whole cast gets locked up in a small town jail for being completely clueless about how normal people relate to each other. Watching them move in on a family, and particularly the way they interacted with them, certainly didn’t improve my attitude toward Microsoft. Maybe their ad agency should be locked up?
people are reading too much into the supposed “failure” of the ads and CP+B. the only example of they failing is the ask.com because ask.com don`t know or was naive to think that brand campaign are fast or can be done fast. that is not true at all. branding campaigns take at least 12 months and up to 36 months. how many months the ask.com campaign lasted?. 3,4 months?…..
Seinfeld is just such a douuuche!!!! he is sooo bad don’t know why anyone finds him funny, besides he’s such an arrogant ass.. thinks he’s gods greatest gift to his planet