Microsoft ads have got people listening.
The first installment of the $300 million advertisement campaign launched by Microsoft received a lot of brickbats from the public and specially from the bloggers. However, the second version of the blog has been appreciated more.
In the four and a half minute advertisement titled “Road to nowhere 2” Seinfeld and Bill Gates admit that they are out of touch with the public while discussing making a new film. Seinfeld remarks “Why, Bill? Because as we discussed, you and I are a little out of it. You’re living on some kind of moon house hovering over Seattle like the Mother Ship and I got so many cars I get stuck in my own traffic."
Very few businesses would admit not being in touch with the ordinary people in this day and age and full marks to Crispin, Porter and Bogusky (who are responsible for the campaign) to get Seinfeld and Bill Gates to admit this on the advertisement.
This frank admission has got people interested in the campaign and the next installment of the advertisement is being eagerly awaited as people expect things to change at Microsoft as the company admits to a real problem. With Apple reminding people of how Microsoft was in the 90’s with actions like the approval procedure for Iphone applications and Iphone being available only with AT&T Microsoft has a great chance of becoming a favorite of the ordinary people if they manage to open themselves up and listen to what ordinary people want.
With 145 news stories on Google News the interest seems to be there and it is up to the marketing team to come up with the right message so that the ordinary man again gets interested in what’s in store for them as far as Microsoft and maybe Seinfeld is concerned. I would admit though that some detractors like John Dovarak do argue that till date Microsoft has never developed a good advertisement campaign and nothing makes them believe that it would do it this time around. However, with this second installment Microsoft has proven them wrong to some extent by doing the unexpected (admitting that they have gone wrong in the past) and therefore there is hope this time around.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I find that I am now looking forward to the “next episode” from Microsoft, and to seeing where Bill and Jerry go next. I want the narrative to keep unfolding, to move forward. Isn’t that clever: I suddenly am willing to see Microsoft as part of the future, instead of the bothersome, boring, aggressive, nasty, controlling, frustrating, clunky, commodity of the past.
http://www.unboundedition.com/content/view/7978/50/
September 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
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