

Study says Seinfeld ads made MS brand image worse. - timr
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/business/media/04adco.html?_r=3&ref=technology

======
unalone
No shit. It focused attention away from the brand, it was weird, and it raised
a lot of criticism that attracted people who wouldn't have heard of the ad
anyway.

I'm all for "edgy", and I love CP+B's work, but they were competing against
Apple, and that means competing against possibly the best advertising machine
on the planet. Apple has excellent reputation, they've got beautiful products,
they were competing against a heavily-criticized product, and they had a
brilliant two-pronged ad plan. Part of their ads only discussed product, and
nothing else. No "Let's see people using this." No "Look at people using this
in real life." It was, "We've made something beautiful." No more than that. It
was the revolving iMac, the Macbook Air in the envelope, the rack of iPod
touches, the chromatic Nanos, the many videos of the app store. Emphasis on
"groundbreaking."

Meanwhile, they took out a heavy ad campaign against Microsoft. They made
entertainment pieces. Slapstick. All of it gently teasing Microsoft. No hard
edges: just two funny actors joking around. Even if it was unfair and
imbalanced, even if Hodgman was the funnier of the two, it was _fun_ , and it
was fun like satire is fun. It didn't make the case that Microsoft was bad, it
_took that fact for granted._

Against this, CP+B put in an "edgy" ad. Weird stuff with Gates and Seinfeld
joking. Only problem is, edgy is good when you've got two equal, generic
products. CP+B's Burger King ads stand out because McDonald's has nothing. In
this case, Microsoft is bland, but Apple is a hot product. It's one of the
most fashionable brands on the planet, and even among hardcore tech geeks, it
has a pretty good reputation. (Some people hate it, but some people love it.)
Furthermore, it was a big risk, and Apple - seated in a comfortable niche -
was able to launch attacks directed at the sole fact that it was a pricy and
edgy campaign.

I'm interested in seeing how the "I'm a PC" ads end up doing. They're nice,
even if they still have that feeling of Microsoft's avoiding talking about
their product - and that, I think, is MS's Achilles Heel right now. They're a
nothing brand. They're the biggest but they have no impressive positive
reputation. Their computers are designed by other companies, none of which
stand out. Apple, meanwhile, has an extremely tight product line and they
control every aspect of their product, including ads.

Yeah, Microsoft is the bigger company, but they're at a disadvantage in this
campaign. Apple has a definitive image. Microsoft does not.

~~~
smokey_the_bear
What's CP+B?

~~~
auston
Crispin Porter & Bogusky - <http://www.cpbgroup.com/>

------
antidaily
Apparently, I'm the one person on the planet who actually enjoyed the ads. If
they had focused on their products I probably would have turned the channel.
Nike doesn't have to talk about how great their gear performs, they simply
create a mood. Now, you could argue the Seinfeld ads were a little too Mars
Blackmon-SpikeLee-jokey and not enough Witness-Lebron-Inspiring, but at least
they didn't hit you over the head with Vista. And it allowed them to poke fun
at themselves a bit - break down the big corporate slow-moving behemoth image.

~~~
cake
Not the only one, I liked them too. I was very surprised to see and didn't
liked them first. Afterwards I thought they were great because they were not
focused on the product as you're saying.

Plus Bill Gates making fun of himself... you wouldn't see many CEOs doing that
(even Steve Jobs!).

The article doesn't add much value to what we already know about those ads.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Hear, hear.

Just to see Bill Gates reading from "Code Complete" to that kid was worth the
whole thing....

------
TrevorJ
The problem with the ad is the fact that it's ad odds with the rest of the
brand, there's no unity. Coming from a different brand it could have worked,
but it just came across like the school jock coming to class in goth.

------
Zev
_The ad was shown just once, but people still talk about it._

FWIW, the ad was actually shown twice, the first time was a month before the
super bowl at midnight somewhere in Idaho, specifically so it could be
submitted to award ceremonies for the year.

------
danielrhodes
That's because those ads were retar--- I mean ridiculous.

(sorry pg, there's only so much constructive criticism I can give before I
call it like it is :-))

But seriously, the people who seek identity from their computers are younger
audiences not older ones. That ad, by using a 90s era sitcom character, was
aimed at people who are older. For the people who Microsoft needs to gain some
momentum, it probably ended up making them look ridiculous. Microsoft is still
in the game because of their market power and first-mover status back in the
dawn of personal computers, but it will be very hard for them to dig
themselves out of the hole they are in with money alone.

------
vaksel
why Seinfeld anyways? The guy is a has been. I can see them spending all that
money when the show was in full swing...but now? Whats the point?

~~~
Agathos
I guess the point was to remind us that Microsoft was important back in the
nineties.

~~~
Zoasterboy
Haha, I never thought of it that way, but now I see Microsoft just made a huge
fool of themselves.

