The NY Times has a longish article about the next phase of the Microsoft “take back the brand” campaign. Gone is Seinfeld and up next are ordinary people, a range of celebs and a John Hodgman lookalike:
One new Microsoft commercial even begins with a company engineer who resembles John Hodgman, the comedian portraying the loser PC character in the Apple campaign. “Hello, I’m a PC,” the engineer says, echoing Mr. Hodgman’s recurring line, “and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”
The strategy to use the Apple attack as the basis for a counterstrike is typical for the agency behind the campaign, Crispin Porter & Bogusky.
What’s fascinating about this — as the Times points out — is that it resembles the fall election campaign: PC has been “defined” by the “I’m a Mac” campaign and now Microsoft is trying to “regain control of the narrative.”
I liked the Seinfeld ads, though most did not.
In the earlier Democratic primaries Hillary Clinton was a PC to Obama’s Mac. Now Microsoft appears to be taking a more “populist” approach in its ads, taking “offense” at the impliedly elitist Mac campaign. In this way these dueling ad campaigns shadow what’s going on with the US presidential election.
How will the Mac campaign respond?
September 18, 2008 at 6:12 pm |
I liked the Seinfeld ads also. We all need Bill Gates walking into our homes, goofing around, powering up and down as a robot.
September 19, 2008 at 12:02 pm |
[...] MSFT Commercials The non-Seinfeld part of the Microsoft “take back the brand” (my phrase) campaign launched. Here’s one of the new [...]