Microsoft’s recent high-profile ad campaign featuring the American comic Jerry Seinfeld was not the success the company had hoped it would be. Responses were lukewarm at best, with most finding the ad to be slightly laboured and quite unfunny, like some awkward middle-aged attempt at quirky offbeat cool.
Anyway Valleywag has confirmed that as of tomorrow Microsoft will officially announce the termination of the working relationship with Jerry Seinfeld, stating that it had always planned only a brief working connection, and instead now focus on the new ad campaign, unveiled last week. Question is: is it any better than the old one? Or does the change of tact simply smack of panic and play right into Apple’s hands?
The new ad starts with a reference to the previous Apple Mac advertising campaigns (featuring the UK comedy actors from ‘Peep Show’, in which the boring one was a PC and the young, creative one was a Mac). This new ad similarly opens with a beige-shirted, tweed-suited middle aged man telling us; ‘I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype…’
From there we cut from person to person, seemingly covering all corners of the world and a mix of professions, ages, sexes etc, each of whom tells us that they are also a PC and a quick word about themselves. Not all are humerous but most are lively and bright and generally involve people engaged in some sort of positive endeavour.
The ad certainly works in establishing a cool – by virtue of being inherently uncool in a traditional sense – tone. The very second face we encounter for example is a friendly looking middle-aged woman (seemingly a teacher), who tells us – ‘I’m a PC and I’m not exactly hip’, before we cut to Bill Gates who tells us ‘I’m a PC and I wear glasses’. Such an opening surely represents an embracing of the values for which Microsoft has previously come under fire – particularly by competitors such as Apple.
The solution attempted here is to turn this image of boring, unimaginative, non-cool into a positive virtue by this strange mantra of self-acceptance (I’m a PC, I’m a PC, I am a PC…etc) using ‘ordinary’ people (a couple of celebrities do also feature but are cleverly ‘normalised’ by being edited and presented in the exact same manner as the non-celebrity faces).
The image presented by the various characters is not a youthful, rock ‘n’ roll, sexy one (even the one musician in the ad wears glasses and looks not unlike a youthful Gates) but instead an honest, hard-working, make-the-world-a-better-place type of atmosphere (we see a wildlife campaigner, a biofuel-producing farmer, an African primary school teacher, a geneticist, and an astronaut among others).
It seems Microsoft and Bill Gates are telling us they know they’re not as cool as Apple – and also that they’re ok with this; all they want is to be themselves and contribute something positive, rather than be sexy or chic. Pretty clever work from the ad agency if you ask me…
Some have criticised the ad for submitting to Apple in the sense of acknowledging the negative brand aspects that their ad campaigns implied for Microsoft. But rather than being a mis-step which plays by Apple’s rules I think the ad is simply a more straightforward and effective tool than the previous Seinfeld campaign.
The abstract aspects of that ad campaign have been greatly toned down, and instead this new offering is far clearer in its brand message – perhaps appearing more honest in openly acknowelging an overt attempt to influence brand perceptions, rather than to subtly shade them with abstract quasi-postmodern anti-marketing.
The issue still remains that whatever ad campaign Microsoft embarks on they will always have to consider the hurdle represented by years of bad press over accusations of monopolising and being an unscrupulous money-making corporate behemoth. Perhaps a few real changes in business practice will go some way to addressing this issue, and possibly lower the public’s resistance any positive brand message.
However to return to the ad itself the effort is surely a good way better than the Gates/Seinfeld one. The dropping of Jerry Seinfeld in so hurried a manner might look like panic, but in the flipside it can also be seen as a company professionaly reacting to underachieving on its goals and seeking to put it right. To have stubbornly persisted with the previous campaign would have been obstinate almost to the point of self-harming.
Ultimately Microsoft scores better marks for this ad, if for nothing other than a pragmatic acceptance of the negative aspects of its brand image (uncreative, boring etc) and the subsequent attempt to reconfigure this perception (deep down we all know being a teacher or wildlife campaigner is cool in a grown up, mature and sensible way – as is Microsoft, according to this ad. Apple on the other hand now seems slightly juvenile and contrived in its faux generation x posturing).
One thing is for sure; Microsoft’s eggs are now in this basket. After all, one change of approach is ok, yet another though would surely give the impression of a confused and disorganised wealthy company unsure of how to proceed. In my eyes it need not worry – this new ad is still not an absolute classic, but is miles better than the previous one and quite a clever piece of work.
