Quick Opinion On New Microsoft Windows Commercials
So, Microsoft
has begun a new line of commercials to combat the popular Mac ads.
The first in this new series were ads featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, and honestly, they were bad. They just didn’t make sense and I didn’t understand the point Microsoft was trying to make. Also, they were extremely long.
Shortly after these first couple of Gates and Seinfeld commercials aired, Microsoft be
gan airing another line of commercials that I actually thought were very well done. These begin with “PC” saying that he’s been made into a stereotype, and then a very diverse group of people from around the world and across a range of professions proclaim they are PCs. I thought this was a clever idea, because even though the Mac ads are amusing, they do negatively stereotype PC users. I thought Microsoft came up with an appropriate response.
And just to throw it out there, I’m a PC.
albrightja said,
October 10, 2008 at 1:14 am
I agree with you about the new MS Windows commercials. The first commercial was just weird, Bill Gates buying shoes in the mall with Seinfeld. Ya right, and what was that weird gesture at the end in the parking lot where Seinfeld asked Gates for inside information. I am not sure what MS was trying to communicate by that? Any Idea?
The second series where they played the PC stereotype was their best but I felt it was a copied from the Discovery Channels series commercial series. The Discovery channel commercial is composed of about 15 quick cuts from around the world of people performing all sorts of occupations all singing a single common song with a single meaning “The World is Just Good”. This commercial series is one of my favorites, it was so simple, clean, elegant, entrancing, and it had me singing their song in my head for weeks. MS copied this concept for their PC stereotype series, not exact but close enough in my opinion.
MS also had a third TV commercial series. The Mohave Project. Hmmmm. Another copied Idea. In this commercial series a focus group is showed a new OS called Mohave and they have great reviews for it. The commercial was a bit bland in my opinion but it struck me as a bit to familiar to the Pizza Hut Commercial where they showed their product to a Focus Group who was unaware of its origin and they also had rave reviews of it. The Pizza Hut and the MS Vista commercial were strikingly familiar… I wonder what happened there.
I am usually a PC lover and Mac hater but I have to call PC out on this that they copied 2/3 of their TV commercial Ideas. On a side note, Apple has a long line of TV commercials dating all the way back to their classic 1984 commercial again bashing the stereotype of PC users. Is it just me or has PC new to the TV commercial world? An act of desperation? Just a question, I still love PCs over Macs.
Links to referenced TV commercials:
Apple 1984: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxShzoUjiAQ
Pizza Hut Taste Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF4FtWghQAw
Discovery Channel Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0&feature=related
PC 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk57VKWbGQg
PC 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkZdkHylJ3w
PC 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsStHxtVr_w