Microsoft: No Genius After All

Written on September 18, 2008 – 9:51 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

A few weeks ago Ernst-Jan wrote an article where he claimed that the new Microsoft Ad campaign with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates was probably an act of genius but we just didn’t ‘get it’ yet:

It’s genius, but we, dazed and confused early adopters, don’t see it yet.

Well, it looks like we, the dazed and confused early adopters, weren’t so dazed and confused after all. Microsoft has decided to cancel the whole campaign reports Valleywag. Oh yeah.

This is pretty exciting news as the whole tech world was holding its breath for the clue to these clueless movies. Now that there isn’t one I expect an avalanche of negative publicity for Microsoft whose single purpose with the campaign was to get some positive publicity for a chance. Poor Microsoft…

Here are both clips, one last time:

I hope you like that post!

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Microsoft, movies, seinfeld

About the author: Serial entrepreneur and founder of several companies. Current activities include TwitterCounter.com and The Next Web Conference & Blog.

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8 comments/trackbacks to “Microsoft: No Genius After All”

Oct 20, 2008: Mischievous Monday Mornings: The Gloves Come Off!
[...] did you expect? Did you think that Apple would back off Microsoft after their Seinfeld fiasco? Nah, not Apple. They are back with a vengeance! The new ads are aggressive, below the belt, dark [...]
Nov 25, 2008: WIRED: “Ray Ozzie Wants to Push Microsoft Back Into Startup Mode”
[...] ad campaigns sucked, their products sucked, their CEO sucked and they were basically just, well, [...]

By Patrick de Laive on Sep 18, 2008

according to techcrunch MS won’t stop the campaign, but kicks out Jerry Seinfeld.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....-business/

[Reply]
By Simon on Sep 18, 2008

I think this is all part of the whole campain, just to create hype. That’s kind of Crispin Porter + Bogusky style of work right?

[Reply]
By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on September 18th, 2008:
exactly! you better wait Boris, I’ll get that champagne ;)

[Reply]
By Nathan on Sep 19, 2008

First time I’d seen the commercials because I’ve been overseas and I’ve gotta say: I love em! I fail to see any reason to complain about them. Is it elitism? Maybe just too different for folks? Maybe I’m just a common man, but I hope they hang around.

[Reply]
By Rebecca on Oct 12, 2008

lol you folks are stupid. thats all. the commercial is great and you all are too dumb to get it

[Reply]
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on October 13th, 2008:
Yeah? Then why Microsoft pulled it?

[Reply]