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Microsoft's Next Seinfeld Ad Airs: 'New Family'

They're just so not funny :(

IMHO, Bill Gates is actually quite good and would work well in ads if they were written by somebody with half a brain. Seinfeld, however, doesn't seem to be funny at all...

What you need is Bill Gates and Ricky Gervais :)
 
It does get better

It's getting better, I mean - this time I actually laughed :)

Wonder what comes next...
I know I should actually hate this ad as an Apple fan, but seriously at least it's not another computer ad. You're supposed to relate and that's the intetion.

Good on you M$, though I still wouldn't buy Vista if it was the last thing I did :)

Cheers!
 
This was a much better effort than the first ad. Seemed to actually have a direction and a point to it first and foremost, but it also managed to be fairly amusing and entertaining as a sketch piece overall.

It still doesn't sell the brand of Microsoft or Vista particularly well, but it is managing to ingrain them on people's conscience. After all, two ads down, and they've both been on the front page of Macrumors.com! :rolleyes:
 
Unreal

Can anybody tell me what they are actually seling? Worst ad in the history of marketing. If they were on the Apprentice, they both would be fired.
 
i-John said:
Holy mother of crap. People here are actually Steve Jobs kool-aid. If youre too blind or stupid to see the genius of the video, Apple will always be behind.

Some of the best advertising ever made no sense. All you need is for people to remember your ad. They are doing that simply because no one makes sense out of it... YET.
Click to expand...
what were we on about i seem to have forgotten what this thread was about
 
Mastidon said:
Can anybody tell me what they are actually seling? Worst ad in the history of marketing. If they were on the Apprentice, they both would be fired.
Click to expand...
If they were on the apprentice they would be making an ad for a new product/company, this would need to push the product heavily.

MS are established, you know who they are and what they do. They just want to boost their image, and remind you that they're there, and can afford to air bloody long adverts!

The goals of these MS ads are clearly quite different, as has been said over, and over, and over, and over...:rolleyes:
 
Pointless

For me the entire ad had the awkwardness of a joke fallen flat. Though to be fair that's what i find with a lot of American humour so perhaps its a cultural thing.
Seinfeld isn't particularly famous over here, especially amongst young people so that didn't hold any particular draw.
Gates did come off well, not funny, but as a pretty genuine guy.
Obviously this ad isn't meant for UK consumption though so i suppose it's somewhat irrelevant.

Where i feel the ad really does fall down though is that it doesn't advertise anything. For the people saying it gets us talking, it certainly seems to have done so. But the purpose of an ad is to get us buying, to recoup the ad investment through increased sales or market share.
For all that I'm willing to talk about how poor i think the ad is, I'm not compelled to go out and buy a Microsoft product and i don't think anyone seriously is by this ad.

With regard to Microsoft's need to reform it's image, it's clearly an issue but I don't think a happy friendly campaign is the way to go. The reason that people are using XP rather than Vista isn't that they dislike Microsoft, it's that they consider it superior. Same with most Mac users. In this situation a campaign emphasising the benefits of Vista would be better than a generalised campaign in attracting upgrades / switches.
 
I thought the ad was good though Bill Gates body popping at the end was fairly disturbing.

full disclosure: I'm a fan of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm ...
 
CuddlyNinja said:
With regard to Microsoft's need to reform it's image, it's clearly an issue but I don't think a happy friendly campaign is the way to go. The reason that people are using XP rather than Vista isn't that they dislike Microsoft, it's that they consider it superior. Same with most Mac users.
Click to expand...
Indeed. Ballmer replaced "developers! developers! developers!" with "advertisers! advertisers! advertisers!" in 2006. I've never been able to lose the impression that he's great upper management but an awful visionary, partly because he doesn't care what MS does beyond money-making. He is the stereotypical used car salesman and knows it.
 
why shoes

Sorry, I don't get the MS ads.
In this one, the shoe from the first epic drama came back for a few seconds.
As if they want to say: hey, a new shoe doesn't fit right, stick with Windoze".

These ads aren't funny, movie lighting is depressing etc. etc.
They're pointless.
 
I didn't get much out of the first ad - but this second one is fantastic - - v.funny. Really odd concept - probably go over many people's head but I loved it - nearly as much as I hate Microsoft products! :)
 
Getting better

This one's really not that bad. I thought it was a least a little entertaining and it does have a vague message to it. The first one was just poor. There was nothing funny about it at all. This one was fun... sort of. Still doesn't say anything or make you want to buy a PC with Windows but I really don't think that's the point. This whole thing is just an exercise in making people feel better about Microsoft generally, and trying to alter people's perception of them away from the whole evil empire thing they have going on right now.
Don't hate it just because you feel you should. You can enjoy it and still feel comfortable that Windows sucks. :p
 
at least that one was sort of funny. i mean i didn't wet myself or anything, but it's better than shoe circus. again...Vista wha?
 
johnasmith1914 said:
For some reason, now I really want to get a PC with vista on it.

I'm thinking about HP DV-5 intel 2.4ghz core2duo, 2gb ram, 250gb hdd... $700 from bensbargains.net

of course i'll have to dual-boot vista and leopard in case i want to switch back to mac.


but yeah, i find the commercial strangely effective at making vista look palatable.
Click to expand...

99% of stupid posts in this thread are from you! Congratulations!! You really deserve a PC with Vista :)
 
Yeah agreed, the first one didn't sit right with me but this one is far better. They are selling microsoft as a whole and not just another pc advert with specs and information flying round the screen. Its about rebranding the image of microsoft as i think they needed some good PR after the vista debacle. This one was actually funnier too. Not laugh out loud funny but gentle funny. I look forward to seeing more of them. :)
 
This one was funnier but the digs at Apple are so tame I'm not sure they are even 'digs' at all?

I still can't see how this is going to change peoples perception of MS though.

Entertaining but not informative.

5 out of 10 (first ad was about 3)

EDIT:

I get the feeling that no matter what MS do now they can never repair the damage to the brand. People are moving away from MS in droves because they are tired of being toyed with. MS obviously realise this and are attempting to do something about it but consumers are smart enough to also realise MS are now admitting to it so in effect these ads are driving them even further away. Thats how I see it anyway. :)
 
I quite enjoyed this one, got a few giggles out of it. Nice to see two such well established and respected individuals simply goofing around as well.

I think it's quite a niche ad in that not very many people are going to really enjoy it. Why Microsoft have gone for such an obscure style beats me, but I enjoyed it.
 
wow...

what the **** was tht about?? i completely missed the point of the ad apart from them bragging about being the most famous people in their selected professions....

it was kinda funny but, in a 'you idiots' kinda way
 
i agree w/ above statements "a commercial about nothing"
but isn't that great!

they are kinda funny
and a big waste of micro$$ money
:)

as I would say if this were work: "not my problem"

why, per say, does micro$$ need to put a face (or two faces) on their products?

apple has better music & a great voice over
*works for me*
 
I find it pretty funny to be honest, they're definitely trying to lure everyone in the whole "Gates is just an ordinary guy" thing, I give it 3 more ads then it'll just be purely Vista & Windows 7 jargon and stuff, with Jerry just pulling off some really fake wows... :rolleyes:

If you don't watch it as an ad, and watch it as a short film, it makes it funnier :p
 
Ok I am starting to like the ads. Not because they get me to buy vista, but they are refreshing ads. Seeing Bill do something like this is interesting, and with the way they are going, all I want to do is see where they are off to next. guess Ill have to wait another week.
 
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