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In new Windows ad, Bill Gates shakes his other moneymaker for Seinfeld

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Have you seen the ads? If not, you can watch the first one below.

My first reaction was -- 'Huh? What was that all about? What is it trying to say?' And it seems I wasn't alone. One review after another says pretty much the same thing: Just as Seinfeld was a show about nothing, so are the ads. Or as my fellow blogger Jonathan Berr said: "It was like a bad Seinfeld episode."

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is looking to counter the bad publicity of Windows Vista and the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) successful commercials with this $300 million ad campaign (of which a cool $10 million goes to Jerry Seinfeld himself), but many question if this is the right use of the money.


I must admit that as an avid Seinfeld fan, the ad indeed made me smile, even chuckle at the end when Gates does his little dance move, but it certainly didn't make me think of Microsoft in any way as "cooler." Probably the opposite. But the ad also left me scratching my head, which perhaps has been the intention all along - leave viewers thinking and talking. And they've certainly been talking. Or perhaps this is going somewhere with the next ads. Who knows?

Few things are clear though: 1) If the intention was to communicate a message, it was lost on most people. 2) If the intention was to compete with the Apple ads, which are so clever and cool, it likely failed there too. 3) If the intention was to re-brand Microsoft as fresh and cool, it probably achieved the opposite as the younger crowd cannot relate to "two geezers" the way Microsoft wants. 4) If the ads were intended as a publicity stunt, they achieved their goal as almost everyone's talking about the.

Here, you watch and decide for yourself. And if you happen to "get it," please inform us, as I'm sure most (me among them) would like to know the "secret message" behind the ads.

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Last updated: November 10, 2009: 11:00 AM

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