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Microsoft To Announce Jerry Seinfeld Ads Cancelled
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.'"
Yeah, I agree. Atleast, I enjoyed the second one. Not as an ad though.. more as an interesting short. I can't really fathom how the intention could be anything more than that given the way they were made/scripted.
I record my sleeptalking
Glad the ads are dead. There's "cool" surreal. (See: Rutger Hauer Guinness commercials 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.
"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.
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.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
And the thing is....someone, probably multiple people in a committee...actually thought these commercials were a GOOD idea!! I mean, even a company with the assets MS has doesn't just throw millions of dollars around on ads without a lot of people approving this.
Was there not a single, normal person that saw these say said...WTF?
Someone in charge of marketing at MS really needs to be encouraged to find greener pastures at another company over this one....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If they wanted to make commercials in the vein of Seinfeld, they should have hired Larry David. He seems to have been the real genius behind that series.
Perhaps Microsoft should stop hiring yes-men for those committees :P.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
And the thing is....someone, probably multiple people in a committee...actually thought these commercials were a GOOD idea!!
Probably the same committee that thought Vista was a good idea.
http://www.mhall119.com
And the thing is....someone, probably multiple people in a committee...actually thought these commercials were a GOOD idea!!
Actually I imagine the truth was simpler than that. There was probably a boardroom of people who were each unwilling to admit that they didn't understand these very esoteric ads. Each one outwardly proclaimed them "brilliant", while inwardly they had no idea what was going on. Nobody was willing to point out that the emperor had no clothes.
Proverbs 21:19
Not for Microsoft. I don't think product awareness is much of a need for Microsoft Windows. What they were trying to accomplish was to change their brand image, to make themselves appear "cool". They failed miserably. What a massive waste of money.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Consider:
1. The ads are just plain freaky. It's hard to imagine any focus group reaction other than possible mild laughter and "WTF?" which means that middle managers would be too scared for their jobs to approve them. The approval for these ads had to come from a top executive.
2. The message is oddly mixed regarding Microsoft itself. The idea is that there's some new stuff on the horizon that will solve all the problems the current stuff has. Why pay to advertise that your current stuff has problems?
3. Bill Gates is prominently featured throughout--the ads focus most of their attention on him. From the 70s drivers license photo to the Conquistadors to reading the story about programming, it's all about showing us who Gates is (or wants to be).
4. If I remember correctly, the word "Microsoft" does not appear - either spoken or as text - anywhere in the ad. The only reference to Microsoft is the Windows logo.
So: The purpose of these ads is to rehabilitate Bill Gates' image as he exits Microsoft and starts his new career as a philanthropist. The middle managers responsible for marketing and communications probably argued against it because it goes against any possible message they might want to convey. But Bill Gates gets what he wants.
These same middle managers are then put on the spot to answer questions about the thing. "This reaction was not unexpected" means "we knew it sucked but we were overruled." And "People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads" means "Gates now realizes it was a mistake and blames us, even though we told him so."
Plausible?