We’ve confirmed with multiple sources that Microsoft will announce the second phase of their $300 million marketing campaign, which, unfortunately, axes Jerry Seinfeld. Waggener Edstrom confirmed the move tonight. According to WaggEd, Microsoft will spin it in a way that would make us believe that axing Jerry was the plan the whole time, which it is according to our sources out West.
Makes perfect sense if you ask me. Create two ads that make absolutely no sense at all that generate enough buzz and then you kill it. It makes everyone scratch their head and say “WTF?” Bravo, MS, bravo! I guess you guys aren’t as stupid as everyone thought you were. But what do you have lined up? I’m pulling for you, so don’t disappoint me and I’m a Mac fan!
UPDATE – The NYT is reporting that the first of the new commercials will feature a John Hodgman look-alike kvetching about PC stereotypes. Also look for Eva Longoria, Deepak Chopra, and Pharrell Williams to lend their stately visages to the upcoming commercials.
That was fast
@Andrew…so are you, to plug your tacky site.
Oh you’re just a Mac fan. It’s not like they care what you fanboys think anyway. Why are you even watching these commercials? Should you be out waiting in line for the next iPhone accessory?
With Vista sales so low – Microsoft can’t really afford too much of Jerry. BTW: Scott C raises an interesting point – has there ever been a line for the Zune – except of course the Zune Dude and his mom.
I can’t believe that after two executions, Microsoft is actually listening to their audience and getting rid of Seinfield. The thinking behind the ads is spot on – Microsoft listening to consumers and trying to understand them. It’s just that they needed a little more time to form or roll them out a lot quicker. The time delay between the first and the second ad was a little long and the connection with online is still not there.
After working on the Microsoft account for four years, I think the positioning is so right for them. People love to hate Microsoft, so they need to start listening. The key for me is seeing if any of this listening is actually translated into product enhancements, developments or upgrades. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft goes all Dell IdeaStorm – which is exactly where they need to be.
Yeah, good move. Those ads were not making any sense. I just buy Microsoft’s products because of Mr. Bill Gates.
Will we never learn what becomes of Jerry and Bill? What about their budding romance? Will nobody feed grandma? What role did the enigmatic Spanish speaking family have in the revival of Windows Vista? I gave 6 minutes of my life to this soap opera!
What could possibly salvage ‘Vista; (AKA “Windows Not Responding”) at this point except:
Making the OS work reliably
Making the Windows Explorer work reliably
Making the Internet Explorer work reliably
Making the Windows Live Mail work reliably
????
What could possibly salvage ‘Vista; (AKA “Windows Not Responding”) at this point except:
Making the OS work reliably
Making the Windows Explorer work reliably
Making the Internet Explorer work reliably
Making the Windows Live Mail work reliably
????
I heard Jerry had signed a contract worth $10 mil. Was that just for those two commercials!!??
I am a fan of Microsoft, Vista and Seinfeld, but I gotta say those ads suck. MS was better off without any ads than those.
I read that the ads are sorta a response to the Mac ads, these ads seem to enforce the idea in the Mac ads. It makes Microsoft look like a shoddy company that has no idea what they are doing.
This article has been confirmed not to be true multiple Microsoft news websites have confirmed that the ads are not being axed and crunchgear is just posting incorrect facts.
:( I really liked the ads as well, although only a few companies with huge brand names are capable of pulling of ads that have nothing to do with the product and Microsoft is one of them. Brilliant advertising IMHO. As for the Vista basher, go and die, Vista is the best OS MS have ever produced (after 2008 server), just go and spend $$$ on some crap Mac and I’ll spend half of that on a Vista PC with thrice the Power!
I actually liked the second commercial. I think people we’re being a bit too harsh with the videos. Sure the first one was way odd, but the second one was a lot better. I could almost believe this cutting off of this campaign as being part of the plan. It got all of our attention it looks like.
Who’d have thought, Bill Gates can act! But those ads are really bad – the Apple guys must have wet their pants laughing when they saw them..& Seinfeld was laughing all the way to the bank too!
Aaaaww! I liked them. I thought they were fun – kinda dumb, but fun.
So they’re gonna have an “I’m a PC” lookalike getting all defensive about the Mac ads?
That’s REALLY gonna make them look like boobs.
I dont get it? What are they selling?
Wow, Seinfeld is even less funny than I remember… and that’s saying something…
I think they need to do the following three things…
1. Hire the fat PC guy himself from the Mac ads. He makes me like PC’s more.
2. Get the word out that when someone blindly installs software from RandomSoftwareManufacturerX.com and the computer crashes, it’s not Microsoft’s fault.
3. Get the word out that when someone blindly buys a computer manufactured by some no name company in Micronesia for $198 at WalMart that you get what you pay for.
I swear Steve Jobs could pull a Billy Madison and say “You ‘aint cool unless you pee your pants!” and then thousands of people would walk the streets of New York with white earphones and wet crotches.
Maybe not so funny as a Seinfeld episode. But what do you want for 10 million? Definitely more entertaining than the smug little Mac ads.
Microsoft should pay 10 million dollars to have the fat PC guy do a smack down on the “cool” Mac guy. That would make me go out and buy Vista.
a lot of people on campus and ppl i kno like them. i personally like them too. and besides, word is that these ads were NOT cancelled (jerry is still in, yay!).
The very fact that you guys are talking about the ads proves one thing-you saw them and they generating a buzz. Don’t you think that is exactly what Gates had in mind? DUH! Where is your spirit of fun anyway? Either you get it or you don’t.
The very fact that you guys are talking about the ads proves one thing-you saw them and they generating a buzz. Don’t you think that is exactly what Gates had in mind? DUH! Where is your spirit of fun anyway? Either you get it or you don’t.
Funny I seen one of these commercials yesterday & was like what the heck? They truly were the odd couple & judging by the American Express ads of past with Seinfield, I know he wasn’t cheap!
Interested in learning computer tips by video demonstration? Please check my website out: PCLicious Video Tutorials
Weird I seen one of these commercials yesterday & was like what the heck? They truly were the odd couple & judging by the American Express ads of past with Seinfield, I know he wasn’t cheap!!
Interested in learning computer tips by video demonstration? Please check my website out: PCLicious Video Tutorials
@Jim Jones: all of those problems have been fixed, but patches are not necessarily a 100% way to fix a problem, since the customers will be already pissed and may have already screwed their system by the time they get them, also it’s difficult to make sure that people will even get the patches or install them correctly, either way, if you buy a new copy of vista today with the patches in it, or slipstream an install, you won’t see those problems (don’t know about this live mail thing, do you just use any app that appears on your computer? you couldn’t be bothered with outlook or thunderbird or just using the web? “OOOOOH! HP photo manager, it’s gotta be a killer app!”)
Anyway, Mac had a great campaign going smearing PCs and making customers think that they were being lame and rigid for using them, that they were not doing something socially acceptable. This deception seemed very effective and probably increased Apple’s tiny tiny desktop and laptop market share, a tiny tiny bit at least.
Microsoft is not running out of money for their ads, and they do know about a lot of the problems in their software, they just do risk analysis to see if they should release anyway, and the guys who did this analysis for Vista f’ed up a bit, but guess what, they still made money.
That said, the Seinfeld commercial left me asking what that had to do with PCs, and couldn’t have significantly helped Microsoft’s cause, but the new commercial looks significantly better and shuts up the Apple message fairly effectively (lots of diverse people, some nerds, some business people, some with awesome jobs, some who sell fish, use PCs).
I have purchased at least 5 high-end MS based Dell computers for home and school. Each with the latest bells and whistles (new chips, high speed buses etc.). MS based computers systematicaly degrade in performance to the point that no amount of “clean up”, anti-spam, anti-virus or anti-whatever software can do anything to make it useful. My latest disaster was when Dell Support was remotely installing a fix to protect me from a certain virsus that infected my system. As tech support (India) flashed screen after screen in real-time installing fixes, a virus was downloaded and seized my computer before my eyes. Great! I ended up whiping the disc clean and re-installing the OS (multiple times). My son’s high-end Dell crashed the first day of college. He had the disc drive replaced every year until the 4 year warranty ran out. He has a Vista based very expensive Dell laptop for law school. We are switching to Apple! I have spent enough on support, software, and hardware from and Dell and MS. Enough! I don’t care how slick your commercials are. It is still CRAP!