I don’t know if they’re actually airing these adverts Stateside, or whether they’re a web-only phenomenon for the moment, but Penny Arcade drew my attention to them today. Colour me unimpressed. If the intention was to shake off Vista’s sales blues, or to generally ‘connect’ with the wider consumer in a way that Apple does so well but Microsoft almost never does, but I’d have to classify this effort as a failure of sizable proportions.
Maybe it’s me; maybe I just don’t ‘get’ Seinfeld-style humour, or maybe it’s that Bill Gates really doesn’t remotely inspire or entertain me (making skiploads of cash every nanosecond might inspire some people to revere him, but not me). From my perspective though this is a fairly poor attempt at deadpan humour which leaves me with an impression of Gates being even more of an arrogant but incredibly dull grey suit than I thought before. Worse – it seems his thinking is that acting like a dull grey suit in wacky surroundings will somehow make him endearing and amusing, which couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s equivalent to your Uncle Henry who, despite bearing an unnatural affinity with tweed, thinks he can transform into John Travolta when he hits the wedding reception dance floor. Deeply painful to watch.
Tip to Microsoft – if you want endearing consumer-friendly ads, write Gates out of the script next time, he’s a dead weight.
*edit: I know this is old news but I’m behind a little, very busy lately!
September 16th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Unfortunately, these are airing on TV over here. I saw the shoe store commercial while watching the NFL last week. I agree that these commercials ABSOLUTELY suck. You finish watching one of them and ask yourself “what the hell was that?”. I’m not sure how long they actually are, but they seem like they last an eternity (OK, it feels like 5 minutes at least).
All that said, Seinfeld was a good show. I don’t think this really reflects his abilities. I also think it’s a bit unfair to place Gates in a box where his bank account should be the only impressive thing about him. It’s definitely a case of “what have you done lately”, but he definitely has a few skins on the wall.
The Mac commercials are getting old to me too now. They need to come up with something fresh IMO. I used to stop down to watch them while fast forwarding thru commercials on Tivo. Now I just keep going. That’s the new metric for commercials these days.
September 16th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
There’s no doubt that Gates has done a lot, I just find his achievements come with far too much baggage to be very inspiring. While there’s plenty to admire in his business chops (which is where MS has shone the brightest), the questionable methods that he’s employed over the years to gain success overshadows much of what he’s achieved. If you admire success and are happy to turn a blind eye to much of what he’s done to get there, I’m sure he’s a great role model. Personally that doesn’t inspire me much though. And I do think a lot of people fawn over him because he’s stinking rich rather than for his vibrant personality.
Perhaps he feels somewhat the same way, which is why he’s quitting MS to concentrate on more ‘worthwhile’ ventures? Brushing up the old karma before the reckoning perhaps
What he does in the next 20 years will almost certainly be far more inspiring than what he’s been doing for the last 20.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
I think its just you.
I personally liked the ads and thought they were humorous. Its the English humor that is odd!
Stop the hate!
There is another commercial at microsoft.com/windows if you have 4 minutes of time. I think this approach is new. A lot of times people say “we need something new”, and when something new comes out they’re baffled and hate it. Even thought I don’t believe I am biased, I guess I should mention that I work for the evil empire.
September 17th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Yeah, it’s definately you. These guys are not Abbot and Costello by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s entertaining to see them so “regular” and “unpampered”. They’ve both reached the pinnacles of their respective contemporary industries and to see them in humbling, humorous sketches is just plain fun. Perhaps it’s because I’m American, and they are both such big icons in our culture.
One thing I know for sure, I’d like to see that zeropuncuation bloke dropped of a building someday. Listening to his nasty at 90 kilomoters per hour verbage is like having my ass scrubbed really hard with brillo. It’ll be along time before I let that happen again.
September 17th, 2008 at 3:02 am
I didn’t think the ad was very funny, and it obviously had absolutely nothing to do with Windows Vista or any Microsoft products, so I’m not sure exactly what they were going for. It was mildly amusing to see Gates and Seinfeld doing chores like sanding that door, but they should be trying to counter to Mac ads (which are actually funny) with something better than this, that’s for sure.
September 17th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I’ve seen two of those commercials so far. The first wasn’t that amusing at all.
The second one, though, did appeal to me. At least a little. In particular there’s a scene where Bill Gates is reading a programming manual to a child as a bedtime story, and he goes on a bit about inheritance and polymorphism. I got a good laugh from that.
September 17th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Ok, the bedtime story moment wasn’t too bad.
I don’t find Seinfeld very funny though, I was very puzzled when I heard it was ‘the’ US sitcom because it seemed very banal to me. But then I also can’t stand Friends, Will & Grace etc. The only US TV sitcom I’ve liked recently is Scrubs, even though it still often comes with the awful ‘lesson / reflection’ bullshit at the end (since when did comedy have to have a philosophical point?). I find animated sitcoms from the US are much funnier, like Family Guy / American Dad.
Cultural? Maybe.
September 17th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I suspect these commercials *are* going to help Microsoft push Vista in the American heartland. They’ll resonate with the sales guy at Compushack who thinks Apple is cool, knows Windows isn’t, and then knowingly accepts the “we’re hip” reality-distortion invitation that the Bill % Jerry commercials are selling. The ads will satisfy the average buyer who wants to be hip, has seen the Mac-PC commercials but doesn’t quite “get them”, and is sated by the familiarity of Seinfeld. And they’ll alienate the rest of us who view the spots as totally transparent … a group who occupy about 5% of the market.
[Note: this isn't a slam of Microsoft. They know their market. As does Apple.]
September 17th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
And I do find both commercials mildly amusing, despite the forgivable poor delivery of Gates’ lines. That said, the comedy is definitely “American” – perhaps a style you have to grow up on to appreciate, and as funny to many foreigners as German slapstick is to me.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I assume you saw the story that they’re going to stop running these ads.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Apparently it was planned to stop running the adds. They were just “intro” adds to the new “I’m a PC” ones just arriving.