Crispin, Porter, Bogusky, Gates, part 2: here it is. (And no Seinfeld)

So apparently the teasing is over, and here is the real PC campaign:

First, spare thoughts:

1. It’s Crispin, Porter+Bogusky, but not enough. Unfortunately.
2. It’s Microsoft, but not too much. Thanks God.
3. There’s no revolutionary thought behind this: just a brand that makes the world go round showing some newly found pride.
4. Maybe that’s enough of a revolution. It invites PC users not to be ashamed of themselves, and that’s the first step for Microsoft to regain status.
5. Of course, it can’t fix Vista. If it sucks, it sucks.

We’ll see where it leads. It’s a thin balance between cool pride and boring boasting, as you can tell if you compare the 60″ cut with the (less intriguing) 30″.

Oh, as of today, evening of the day after the campaign launched, GMT+1, the 60″ cut by DuncansTV (the WindowsVideos channel doesn’t feature it yet) has less than 5.000 views on youtube.

The 30″ cut less than 20.000.

Too little.

 

Final Burp: a comment from a colleague here at Dare. “This is an ad for Windows, which you can install in a PC or in a MAC (Which is a PC with MacOS preinstalled)”

Crispin, Porter, Bogusky, Gates, Seinfeld: credit beyond reason

 

This is the second episode of a series of Microsoft ads developed by Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. It’s part of a $300M campaign aimed, I think, at connecting Microsoft with consumers, and, as expected, it’s raising a debate in Ad-World

(The debate in the tech-world is generally limited to: Vista sucks! With the option of: Get a Mac!)

You can read AdAge’s cover of the ad here, and if you browse through blogs you can see quite a few people blaming the ad for only casually quoting Windows at the very end of the commercial, but I really don’t think that’s the point: every single shot of Bill Gates, on any commercial, magazine cover or newspaper article, says “Windows” all over the world, so, in ad terms, these long commercials offer plenty of products.

As for me, I really don’t get these ads, and again they seem like a wasted opportunity (as in the case of HSBC), but I have so much faith in Crispin, Porter+Bogusky that I think that, despite every evidence to the contrary, something is up, and this campaign will eventually takes off.

Who knows, maybe they’re seeding lame ads to lower expectations, until the big climax… After all, it’s the same agency that revived Burger King and Volkswagen USA.

 

Final Burp: With bad news such as Intel’s refusal to upgrade to Vista, Microsoft is in great need of an image makeover, but if CP+B can’t make it, I doubt anyone can.