Warning: this post has nothing to do with technology.

So, there I was watching the Giants beat the Redskins, a-twitter with the rumor that Microsoft's new TV campaign was going to debut at any moment. Could Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates match the kind of comic chemistry that John Hodgman and Justin Long display in Apple's long-running "Get a Mac" campaign? How would Crispen Porter + Bogusky (the famously hip ad agency that Microsoft hired) answer the irreverent attack strategy of TBWA, Apple’s long-standing brand stewards, which painted Microsoft as a neurotic nerd? What new brand positioning was in store for Microsoft? What would they say?

Finally, the spot, dubbed "Shoe Circus," came on. I suspect it left most of the audience baffled. I had to watch it a few times before I felt like I got it. Then, I felt like it provided a fascinating window into the game as Microsoft sees it.



As suspected, the ad is pure brand: there’s no mention of product, and almost no mention of Microsoft. The first part of the ad is devoted to establishing the screen presence and rapport of the two stars, Jerry and Bill, who play themselves meeting by chance at a discount shoe store in a mall. Bill pulls off a very decent straight man to Jerry’s classic cloying funny man, and the scene unfolds Larry David style, riffing on theme of the discount-loyalty-card-carrying billionaire. It's not until the second part of the ad that we get any clue as to the real theme. Walking away together in the parking lot, Jerry quips, "…I imagine that over the years you’ve mind-melded your magnum Jupiter brain with those other Saturn ring brains at Microsoft." Bill thoughtfully replies, "I have." The conversation then turns to Microsoft's secret future plans for edible computers, closing with the tag cards, "the future," "delicious" and a Windows logo.

So, what is this? First, a key new roll for Bill Gates: he’s now front and center as Microsoft's low-key wizard/father, a normal, practical man on the outside with the vast knowledge of time and space on the inside. Jerry, the inquisitive man-child, is an aspiring student, drawing out glimpses of Microsoft's vast, beneficent vision for the future of technology and mankind. It's not about Microsoft vs. Apple (or Microsoft vs. Google): Microsoft transcends today’s politics. It's a company with long-range goals and magical projects at the edge of innovation that have been unfolding for years, where today's products and competition are barely relevant.

This kind of thing is certainly likely confuse and possibly infuriate today's IT professionals who, for the most part, are probably more concerned with the stability of Vista than such Madison Avenue malarkey. It may even confuse and infuriate some folks at Microsoft. But these are not the audiences for this message. Here's something I picked up a long time ago at an ad agency that worked for another large technology company: high-tech branding is not about end users or IT decision-makers, it's about the shareholders. And it's not about changing their minds about Microsoft's products, it's about changing their hearts and their instincts about what kind of company Microsoft is and where they're headed (and hence what kind of investment they are).

To wit, Microsoft's price/earning ratio, which is a pretty good measure of the value of its brand in the mind of the market, is 14.09. Google's is 29.59. Apple's? 31.53. (Even IBM edges them out on this metric.) Clearly, the market thinks other high-tech companies are much more likely to produce strong growth in the future. I suspect when the agency researchers explored these attitudes with focus groups, they discovered that a big part of the reason was Microsoft's perceived lack of leadership in the wake of Bill Gates' departure. Hence the first perception they set out to establish is, while Gates may have retired his post, his spirit and vision live on in the soul of Microsoft.

What will it take to succeed? First, changing the focus to the vision thing has to make the Apple campaign seem petty and narrow by comparison. That will be difficult, given the entertaining nature of Apple's spots, but the gag is starting to age. Second, the campaign has to avoid a major hazard of many future-oriented tech brand campaigns, which can backfire when they highlight the gap with the present and fuel suspicions that the company is spending too much time dreaming and not enough fixing bugs. The classic example of this was the AT&T "You Will" campaign, which featured futuristic vignettes with voice-overs by Tom Selleck, including shots of the ill-fated EO pen-based tablet computer that continued to air even after AT&T had shut down the project. And third, the campaign must be entertaining enough to disarm critics in the IT world, who are already starting to howl. Apple did this famously in "1984." More relevant, however, was the IBM "Subtitles" campaign (the one that opened with the Czech-speaking nuns, and the tagline "Solutions for a Small Planet"). Say what you will about the branding mindset and the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend, but check what IBM's stock did after that campaign launched in 1995.

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As another member of the IBM Brand team back in the day, a campaign that contributed to more than doubling IBM's share value, I think this spot is a step in the right direction for Microsoft. It works both to touch the heart in an odd way, making Gates and hence Microsoft somewhat lovable, while pointing to the magically enabling future into which Microsoft promises to carry us, as you have ably pointed out.

What you failed to mention is the funniest bit of the spot. The picture on Bill's Shoe Circus platinum card is none other than his mug shot, taken way back when in Albuquerque, New Mexico when Bill was arrested for a driving offense when Microsoft was based there.

Hats off to Bill for having the sense of humor to allow this shot to be included. Brand spot: Millions. Mug shot: Priceless.

Nice article on this spot by the way. All the other pundits around the Web seem to have missed the point of this ad completely.

About as spontaneous and funny as a Bob Saggat America's Funniest monologue ... awful

The commercial seems to be the first of a series, rather than a stand alone message. Microsoft used this first installment to establish the Bill and Jerry personas.

Since Seinfeld is already associated with the Mac (he's been in a Mac commercial and a Mac computer was part of his apartment set on "Seinfeld") I think that the ad agency considers the Jerry character to be more than an "aspiring student". He's Apple. The commercial is a Microsoft rift on the Get A Mac commercials, with Jerry as John Hodgman and Bill as Justin Long.

Microsoft sees Apple as a minor but succesful player in their market. That's just how Bill treats Jerry. Jerry is famous enough that Bill recognizes him, but it's Jerry who's exited to see Bill, not the other way around. There's a kind of hero worship on Jerry's part. He rushes in to help Bill, actually gets down on his knee in front of him. He yaps like a puppy around Bill, comes up with creative but impractical ideas (wearing shoes in the shower) and in general doesn't make a lot of sense (mind meld your jupiter brain, make a cake-like computer). On the other hand, Bill is tolerant and amused, like Justin Long's attitude toward Hodgman's silly inefectual ranting.

Overall I think the ad is weak. Maybe the next one will be clearer, or hopefully funnier.

This is the first time I watched it all the way through. I saw someone rip it apart on the web but didn't get to see the whole thing. It wasn't as bad as the video I saw which dissected it, and concluded that there was no theme - and it didn't make any sense. Frankly, I have always been tired of Seinfeld's typical racist type of humor. One of the reasons I don't watch TV, although I have watched the Apple TV ads on the internet so I'll comment on this one. Why the Mexican family and the Churro? Is Microsoft alienating a huge demographic or embracing them? What I wonder does the market research say on that? Other than that I agree that there is some kind of vision here. But I wonder who that vision is targeted towards as you said is it for the shareholders? I think it would have been a better internet ad not a TV ad since it would have probably created the Buzz in a bigger way in anticipation of what the real ads are going to be.

Now on the topic of Apple's TV ads, I have to say - they have quite a variety of ads and the comedy two man ads aren't the only ones. For me, it really didn't make me feel like I was missing out of the future and want to buy a PC. But I am biased, IT centric kind of person who loves the fact that Apple knows that computers are to be enjoyed more than used for work - that the two are one in the same. I also believe that Apple is better at laying out a product line and highlighting core functionality than Microsoft in their ads. Will Microsoft be able to capture that in their future ads? This is what will tell us whether these ads were intended for the shareholders or the consumers.