One of the world’s richest men and one of the world’s best-known comedians meet in a discount shoe store and…
Well, and nothing.
That’s about all there is to say about the start of Microsoft’s biggest-ever branding campaign, which hit TV screens on Thursday evening in the US. Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld met, the comedian helped the rich guy to buy some shoes, and they left.
Except there was one little twist, the smallest hint of a story to come: Seinfeld asks Gates if computers will ever be made “moist and chewy, like cake,” and… (well, watch the rest of it here. The only reference to Windows was a logo at the end.)
In the words of David Melancon of Ito Partnership, a branding concern that has worked for Microsoft in the past: “It was about nothing, as the Seinfeld Show was about nothing – that made it true to the Seinfeld brand.”
But will it do much for the Microsoft brand? High-profile new advertising campaigns like this often become the target of instant judgment from self-appointed “experts”, and this one was no different (these are the none too flattering views of the Slashdot techie crowd – never a pro-Microsoft group at the best of times.)
I’ll reserve my view on this one. The storyline is just beginning, and previous work from red-hot advertsing boutique Crispin Porter + Bogusky (which took over the account from McCann) suggests that there will be surprises and delights ahead.
