Microsoft: Be Funny, But Sell Something
Now that Microsoft is dropping their utterly pointless Seinfeld ads, perhaps they can learn to make a point while still being funny. Pointlessness may be the hallmark of Seinfeld’s humor, but advertising shouldn’t be pointless, and humor doesn’t have to be pointless. Take for instance the Mac switch ad parodies by TrueNuff. They make me glad I’m not a Mac fanboy.
That takes care of the consumer market. What about the enterprise market, where Microsoft has a huge stake? You can use pointed humor there, too. For years, IBM ads have made enterprise computing hilarious.
There are so many ways Microsoft can make its case in a fun way. Bill himself used to do it in Microsoft internal videos. Check out his Matrix spoof with Steve Ballmer.
We may all hate Microsoft, but they do have something to sell. If their ad guys are going to joke around, they should at least do their jobs and sell something.
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You know I’m not a giant Microsoft fan, and I can’t recite Seinfeld episodes. But I was watching some of the Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld extended moments on my AppleTV (oops- irony). Then my wife made me switch to real TV, and at that moment one of the short commercials were running. Here’s what I see those ads having done… sold nothing but a new image for Microsoft. Bring Gates off his evil throne. It was corporate branding, and I was excited to see it. A stark difference from the forgettable trade magazine ads.
Gates can get off his evil throne and still sell an actual product, Nalts. Check out his 1995 Doom video pitching DirectX.