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Seinfeld helping Microsoft find the right fit in new ad

Can Seinfeld help Microsoft's image?

by SoftwareGuru
posted Wednesday 10th September 2008 11:06 GMT

If the aim of a successful marketing campaign is to get the internet to sit up and take notice, then the new series of Microsoft ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld have taken to the field like the Kilkenny hurling team. To understand the ad's success we need to look at it in an overall context.

Market Leader VS The Alternative Upstart

The outstanding success of the Apple iPod has seen Apple's standing among tech and computer users rise dramatically. The branding suited the iPod's image of being trendy, exuberant and artistic. By positioning itself as the Pepsi Cola of it's market it has done very well out of that 'alternative upstart' image.

Around the same time Microsoft's Vista has been taking a critical battering even though many issues are the result of user preconceptions (ie. the online equivalent of old wives' tales) as the Mojave Experiment showed. Enter U.S. comic Jerry Seinfeld...

Seinfeld helps Microsoft find the right fit

Reminding consumers of the reliable choice.

Initially, the clip of Bill Gates buying shoes doesn't exactly say 'buy Microsoft software'. So what has this got to do with, well...anything?

Deeper analysis reveals this to be extremely clever marketing.

Having got hold of your attention, the ideas start to come across. Most people can relate to having a familiar pair of reliable, comfortable shoes that we love to wear. That idea ties in nicely with the values and attributes of being the market leader and similarly to Coke, what Microsoft themselves represent.

Vista, arguably, is nothing more than a new pair of shoes which we need to wear in before they can become that familiar pair we know and love.

Of course some edge or moment of wackiness, even for comedy value, can be useful for the market leader which is why there's a five second clip (and ad highlight) of Seinfeld standing in the shower wearing his shoes. The joke being he's helping them fit better. Users of Microsoft software won't have to go to such lengths.

There's also the in-joke of 'are Microsoft getting too big for their boots?' which given the amount of criticism the company faces online on a daily basis is both clever and amusing.

Let's all hope Bill can get the shoes to fit without having to film his own shower scene in the next ad!

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Can Microsoft's new ad serieswin over Windows customers? We discuss it here.

Can Microsoft's new ad series
win over Windows customers? We discuss it here.