This is quite a hard post to write because it involves me slagging off an agency and a mate who have been great to friends and colleagues to me/us in the past – however as they’ve never been backward in informing us when we’ve done something shit, I guess it’s only fair I repay the favour. 🙂
Without doubt Microsoft would be a hard beast to manage – plus I appreciate this is the first of a ‘set’ of ads that aims to make the monopoly more ‘people friendly’, but unlike some who say it isn’t enough about Microsoft, my beef is that it’s just a very bad script with a very weak idea.
Hell, when Bill Gates comes across better than Jerry or even Keanu, you know there’s something dodgy going on and as much as much as I congratulate the company founder for ‘having a go’, the net effect is that Microsoft’s perception changes very little at all – infact it could be argued it makes them look even worse as they are obviously trying so hard to be cool, that it automatically makes them look uncooler than the most uncool thing in the World.
OK … OK … so perception change of this magnitude is not going to happen overnight and interms of tone, they are miles away from where they once were – however just like the SIA ads I’ve ‘talked about’ in the past, the disruptive effect of these ads is not positive [at least at this point] which begs the question, why did the ego-maniacs at Crispin [ 🙂 ] make the bloody thing because even they don’t come out of it looking good.
And why Jerry Seinfeld?
WHY JERRY “I’m not funny or relevant anymore” SEINFELD?
It all smacks of people with too much money fulfilling their egos and their pension plans.
A while back I slagged off Microsoft for their awful launch campaign for Vista and you know what, as bad as that was – and it was fucking terrible – this spot has not altered my attitude towards the brand one jot, which is very bad news for Microsoft/Crispin but possibly great news for McCaan’s who can say they achieved the same level of apathy for a fraction of the millions this little episode has cost.
The mark of a great agency – at least for me – is when people are genuinely excited to see what brave brilliance they are going to come up with on an old and tired account. Sadly, like BBH’s campaign for British Airways, I am left wondering what the hell happened because what should have been great has come out so bad.
Saying that, this campaign has done one thing … it’s explained why Pete is joining us 🙂