Gawker: valleywag, jerry seinfeld

Microsoft's agency, spokespeople love their Apple products

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:20:00 EDT

Ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky made Microsoft's "I'm a PC" ads using Macs, according to a Flickr user who downloaded an image version of the ad from Microsoft's web site and perused its meta data. After Digital Daily posted the news, a Microsoft flack confirmed the news and said: "Agencies and production houses use a wide variety of software and hardware to create, edit and distribute content, including both Macs and PCs." Along with its ad agency, Microsoft's spokespeople in the "I'm a PC" campaign are also proud Apple product owners.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld used to include a Mac on the set of his sitcom and even appeared in an Apple ad once. Deepak Chopra wrote on the Huffington Post about how he prefers the iPod to nuclear weapons. A geek at an airport made a deep connection with Eva Longoria when he spotted her MacBook. Pharrell Williams encases his iPhone in gold. And finally, I heard Trig Palin tried to sell his iPod Shuffle on eBay, but failed and had to sell it off-line for a loss.

Microsoft ad agency confirms: New Seinfeld ad produced, yet not running

Owen Thomas — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:20:00 EDT

The doublespeak coming from Microsoft and its ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, in the wake of its "icebreaker" ad campaign featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, is amazing. Yesterday, Valleywag learned that Microsoft PR was revving up a spin campaign to go along with the ad campaign. Its aim: To make sure no one interpreted its shift to a series of anti-Mac ads as an abandonment of the Seinfeld spots. But Crispin Porter tells Gizmodo that it did, indeed, have another Seinfeld and Gates spot already produced. It's just not scheduled to air. Anytime. As of yet. It could air. Some day. If Microsoft wants it too. So does this mean Seinfeld will return? As a Microsoft flack told us yesterday, "possibly" and "potentially."

Microsoft announcement tomorrow: No more Seinfeld ads!

Owen Thomas — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:40:00 EDT

Remember those awful Microsoft ads with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates? Well, now you can forget them. Microsoft flacks are desperately dialing reporters to spin them about "phase two" of the ad campaign — a phase, due to be announced tomorrow, which will drop the aging comic altogether. Microsoft's version of the story: Redmond had always planned to drop Seinfeld. The awkward reality: The ads only reminded us how out of touch with consumers Microsoft is — and that Bill Gates's company has millions of dollars to waste on hiring a has-been funnyman to keep him company. Update: In a phone call, Waggener Edstrom flack 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." Update: CPB confirms that Seinfeld spots already in the can will not be aired.

Ad campaign gets everyone talking about how bad ad campaign is

Jackson West — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:40:00 EDT

The new ad campaign from Crispin Porter & Bogusky for Microsoft, which has been rolled out in two parts so far, are "'icebreakers' designed to start a new kind of conversation." Which mean instead of everyone talking about how terrible Windows Vista is, they're talking about how little sense the new ads from Microsoft make. Ultimately, the plan is to get us talking about how Microsoft seems to be screwing up not just Vista and its brand, but "Windows in all its forms." [Windows Vista Team Blog]

Bill Gates spending retirement awkwardly starring in commercials

Jackson West — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:00:00 EDT

It's time for the second spot in the Crispin Porter & Bogusky-produced advertising campaign for Microsoft and Windows Vista. Unlike the last one, there's even a computer! Premiering in two parts during tonight's episode of Big Brother on CBS, the premise posits mundane comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates staying in a Seattle home with "real people" (like veteran actor David Costabile) in order to connect with consumers. Cue the hijinx. The question is, will the campaign work?

I may well be too far down the rabbit hole to have any idea if the spots are having the desired warm-and-fuzzy effect on the populace. If anything, they serve to remind us of the opposite: That Gates and Microsoft are so out of touch, the company has to pay an advertising agency $300 million (and Seinfeld $10 million) to lend even the thinnest veneer of approachability. "Cool," presumably, would have cost extra.

Steve Jobs doesn't get the Seinfeld Microsoft ad either

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:20:00 EDT

In this clip, CNBC's Jim Goldman asks Apple CEO Steve Jobs what he thought of Microsoft's new ad featuring Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Watch the clip: Jobs answers Goldman's question politely, but the CEO's body language says what he won't. He shakes his head. He throws his hands up in the air. He grins and laughs. Like the rest of us, the guy who greenlighted the Mac vs. PC series, the Think Different campaign, and the infamous anti-IBM 1984 ad doesn't get what Microsoft was thinking running that thing either.

Madison Avenue circles wagons to defend unfunny Microsoft-Seinfeld ad

Paul Boutin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:40:00 EDT

"Most companies would have to spend a billion dollars on advertising to get this kind of attention," a brand consultant insisted to the Wall Street Journal in response to Jerry Seinfeld's what-the-huh 90-second TV spot for Microsoft. "The fact that they have the blogs, the business community and mass media talking about it means they hit a nerve," says another. "It's exactly what we were trying to achieve, which was to drive buzz," says Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla. Three's a trend! But ask yourself how many other companies will now intentionally develop campaigns designed to get people talking and talking about how disappointed they are with the whole thing?

Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Gates star in nonsensical new ad campaign

Jackson West — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Long-time Macintosh enthusiast Jerry Seinfeld kicks off the new Microsoft campaign by spotting company cofounder Bill Gates at a fictional discount shoe store. The 90-second spot makes a lot less sense from there. Can't say for certain if this is the spot that Michel Gondry directed, but it certainly has the loopy narrative touches, playful music and one giveaway visual cue: A shot of someone wearing shoes and socks in the shower. It makes no mention of technology until the end, when Seinfeld asks when Microsoft will make an edible computer — and then the audience is treated to Bill Gates adjusting himself in his boxer shorts, hands-free. The whole production says "quirky," not slick or cool, but then Windows Vista is full of maddening quirks.

How to sell Windows Vista to white people

Jackson West — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:20:00 EDT

Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to buff the image of its startingly unpopular operating system, Windows Vista. Nothing so far has worked. Don't worry, Apple and Linux fans — Microsoft is not doing anything threatening, such as actually improving the software.

Instead, the company is paying aging comedian and (reformed?) Mac enthusiast Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to be the product's spokesmonkey. At least one of the ads looks like it was shot against a Brooklyn backdrop by Michel Gondry, the french auteur beloved by white people. Who's responsible for this sudden rush to be hip?

This sounds like the work of Alex Bogusky, the studvertiser at Mac-worshipping ad firm Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Guess Gondry won't be touring Apple stores to promote his next film. (Photo by AP/Franka Bruns)

Microsoft's ad agency says it "exists because of the Mac"

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:40:00 EDT

Before it landed Microsoft's $300 million account and hired Jerry Seinfeld as a spokesperson, the admen of agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky met with Fast Company's Danielle Sacks in April 2007. That's when Alex Bogusky explained exactly what kind of computers it uses, and why:

Crispin sort of exists because of the revolution in desktop publishing that the Mac brought about. You could be a small shop and compete against Madison Avenue for the first time because all the tools were in your computer.

Sacks then asked if CP&B plans to force employees off their Macs now that it's Microsoft's agency. Rob Reilly, Bogusky's executive on the Microsoft account, answered: "It's not a matter of forcing people. It's getting them to want to use it. If you can't, you're not going to do great advertising."

Mac-Loving Seinfeld Endorsing Microsoft For $10 Million

Ryan Tate — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:49:11 EDT

In an effort to promote its poxy Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft is paying Jerry Seinfeld $10 million for an endorsement, the Wall Street Journal reported this morning. Yes, because if there's one surefire way to convince everyone Vista is cool, cutting edge and not liable to get frazzled by life's minor complications, it's hiring a 1990s sitcom star and professional kvetcher! Who, um, very visibly owned a series of Macs on his show. This is Microsoft's worst promotional concept since, well, since its last Vista campaign, the Mojave Experiment, which decisively proved that people hate Vista but will use it if they are tricked into thinking it's something else, like a stable, functional tool. Here's how Madison Avenue is responding:

"They are not seen as cool," says Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a New York branding firm. "Apple is cool. Can anyone even recall a Microsoft ad? No."

And they won't be able to remember this one either, because using Seinfeld humor in ads was already considered tired three years ago.

Good luck with alll that!

[WSJ]