I’m Confused…

Breaking news: It appears the remainder of Microsoft’s $300 million campaign that I’ve discussed HERE and HERE will not feature Jerry Seinfeld.  Microsoft is calling it a “planned second phase” in the campaign, but if that’s true, it’s a way more perplexing move than either of the first two spots. 

Here are some excerpts from the New York Times article that broke the story:

The campaign, which begins Thursday and carries the theme “Windows. Life without walls,” will move away from the enigmatic teaser commercials that featured Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in offbeat conversations about shopping, shoes, suburbia and the potential of computing to improve life.

What follows is an audacious embrace of the disdainful label that Apple, Microsoft’s rival, has gleefully – and successfully – affixed onto users of Microsoft products: “I’m a PC.”

Frankly, I’m confused.  I thought I saw where this campaign was going, but now I’m not so sure. I totally understand the new ad strategy – Turn a perceived negative into a positive.  But where do the first two ads come in?  How do they relate?  They seem completely out of context and don’t seem to set the stage for this new strategy.  I’m not seeing it at this point. 

The new ads are set to feature stars like Eva Longoria, Deepak Chopra, Pharrell Williams and according to the New York Times article, will portray the stars as “everyday PC users.”  I’m going to have to see the execution, but this sounds eerily similar to the recent “The Computer is Personal Again” HP campaign. Add to that reports that one ad will feature a Justin Hodgman (“I’m a PC”) lookalike and this campaign seems to be turning into a disparate, fractured one…

I, along with the rest of the ad community (and the world) will be watching to see how this shakes out.  Many believe this is Microsoft pulling the plug on CP+B’s concept due to the negative reaction to the first two ads.  Here is some of the speculation in case you’re interested in reading:

Engadget
LA Times
Mashable
Valleywag

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 8:30 am. It is filed under Blog Posts and tagged with Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.