Yikes. New Gates/Seinfeld TV spot not funny (at all)
Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld join, er, forces, in this 90-second U.S.-based Microsoft ad that just doesn’t make any sense.
Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld join, er, forces, in this 90-second U.S.-based Microsoft ad that just doesn’t make any sense.
OK, I get Seinfeld’s popular TV series from the ’90s was "about nothing," but this is ridiculous. Is it just me? Have a look below. The spots are airing in the U.S. and it’s not clear at this point if the campaign will be leveraged up here in Canada in the future. Microsoft’s intent for this initial phase of the campaign -according to an internal email republished on TechCrunch – is to:
spark a new conversation about Windows – a conversation that will evolve as the campaign progresses, but will always be marked by humor and humanity
While the jury is still out on whether the campaign has started any conversations about Windows, it has certainly started a conversation about the campaign itself.
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington gives it a 0/10
Sam Diaz at Zdnet asks "Was this supposed to be funny?"
Daniel Ionescu at PC World claims it "makes no sense"
While out spoken technology columnist John C. Dvorak judges Jerry Seinfeld incapable of saving Microsoft.
And here is the spot for those who missed it.. what’s your take?
Filed Under: Computers & Software
Yes it's just you. You must be to young to remember the Seinfeld phenomenon. The commercial was hilarious, a clever spoof on Seinfeld's "show about nothing" and Gate's astronomical wealth and geeky pedigree. It leaves you wanting to see the next "episode" for no apparent reason, just like the original Seinfeld did.
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that was funny. You can get an xbox system for a 199 dollars at future shop
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You just don't get it…..This is a great ad. Who cares what it's about. It's just funny and I guarantee you everyone will remember the microcoft logo at the end. And isn't that the goal of most advertising.
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I think it's great. It was what it set out to be; the first of a series of commercials evolving along with the advertising campaign. What's up with that?…What's up with you?
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I dunno. Maybe too young to get it. But, I guess they reached their objective, which all advertising follows, to get people to talk about the ad. All publicity is good publicity, perhaps? Seems to be the trend these days, don't have to put out a popular ad, just have to get it in people's heads, get it into others' mouths, and then it spreads.
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What's not to like. The funny bum walk ending is great. Oh the branding will stay on my mind every time I put on my shorts.
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C'mon that was hilarious!! What a perfect pairing of minds! It's good to know that Bill Gates has a sense of humour that can keep up with Jerry Seinfeld's
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I agree with you VGO; I can't wait to see the next episode!
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It's okay; putting aside the fact that obviously Microsoft feels Vista needs some image help and they've gone to Seinfeld and this is what we're watching, this is not awful as comedy. It's actually really, really dense with gags, some of them good, some of them not as strong, but it's so dense that it's kind of hard to understand how they all fit the first time you see it. After the second time it seems less random; I don't know, they're just trying to make you think of the company as more human so you'll forgive the errors in Vista at launch.
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I don't get it. Was this supposed to be an advertisement for a product? It mentioned nothing about anything and ended up coming off as a commercial for some mediocre sitcom being shown mid-season. Without any reference or relevance to a product, this commercial makes other ads appear genius.
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Dear Tech,
The real problem from my understanding of this ad is that the ad agency created it instead of letting Jerry Seinfeld create it. Why hire a creative comic genius if you aren't going to use his genius? It would be like hiring Thomas Edison to talk about floor wax. But if Seinfeld did have input in it, then he has obviously lost his touch big time. But I just don't see him having anything to do with the creative aspect of it. I believe he was just hired to star in it.
In any event, as an advertising and marketing professional I found it the most uselsss piece of ad crap I've ever seen. It's not funny, informative or remotely connected to the product it is trying to sell.
This type of junk is the reason I quite the profession. Too many dumb asses in the ad business who don't know the first thing about good advertising.
Been there, done that,
Rango
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absolutely the best
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I completely agree with Rango.
I am in the advertising business and in my opinion, that was pure garbage. That ad only succeeded in confusing the general audience and leading them to believe that Microsoft is now trying to re-create the famous Mac ads and failing miserably at it.
Gerry, I hope your genius did not play a part in creating your role, because it fell flat on its face. Enough said.
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I thought it was funny but I missed the point of it because the first time I saw it I wondered what brand of shoes they were trying to plug.
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At least it didn't have any half naked women in it.
Ironically enough, my system is running on vista and my computer just froze writing that last sentence. It must be remembered that the target audience is extremely naiive and these days any gimmick will sell a product. No doubt that this isn't the greatest most practical ad I've ever seen but surely everyone loves seinfeld and everyone wants to see multi-billionaires acting down to earth so there you go they just sold a couple million computers. As for some of the other commentators on this page, if you really think about it, Jerry Seinfeld agreed to be in this commercial regardless of whether he wrote it or not. With that type of agreement he gives his image to the cause and just because you like him, doesn't mean you have to like the commercial or Pc's. You have automatically proven yourself just as naiive, now go buy yourselves a new computer for the effort.
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and p.s…. it was pretty dumb. Chewy computers- Idiots.
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The begining is just to make you get into the scene and is exactly about Nothing. The 2nd scene takes you to the actual path by preparing you with Jerry's comment on the future possibilities.
Bill's respond clearly tells you that something new is coming. The word "Future" and Microsoft's logo clearly seals the ad and pinpoint the message, "Microsoft is working on a new masterpiece!"
Not a funny ad but an entertaining one to me.
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I think the comercial was just microsoft slapping all the vista users in the face saying: "we got your money and spent $500 million on crap!"
or they were trying to make people not feel so bad for wasting their own money on vista by wasting theirs on this junk,
who knows, who cares, lets all get a life
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I thought it was a shoestore ad…
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I found this kind of funny. I think the whole awkwardness of the situation really stands out and makes the interactions pretty humourous.
I would hope that a company with as much sway as MS wouldn't have to use campy 'star' pitches though… The whole association with Seinfeld and a show about nothing probably isn't what you want attached to your bottom line.. but that's just me. Good luck with that.
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Wow, that's really bad! Seinfeld added a bit magic to American Express with his Superman ads, but this is awful!
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