Seinfeld Vista ad is out, and it's bizarre

Fri Sep 5, 2008 11:05AM EDT

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The first ad from Microsoft's $300 million campaign to resuscitate Windows Vista via pitchman Jerry Seinfeld (who's pocketing $10 million for his work) debuted last night, and now you can see it on Yahoo! Video and YouTube.

Go watch it, come back here, and start scratching your head.

The ad is so far not winning many fans, with most perplexed over the 90-second spot's exploration of churros, footwear, and showering habits, as Seinfeld and Gates (playing themselves) try on shoes in a shopping mall. Vista is never mentioned explicitly in the ad, and Microsoft only comes up in the last few seconds of the ad.

Naysayers call it a baffling, stupid disaster. Kinder critics say that it cleverly plays on Seinfeld's reputation for observational humor (Seinfeld was famously a show "about nothing"). I'll just say, for now, it's weird: Not as bad as I'd been led to believe but hopefully just a quiet opening volley for a campaign that will actually make me laugh out loud down the road.

In one sense, though, the ad is already having some effect: People are actually talking about Windows Vista.

OK armchair critics, what do you think about the spot?

Comments on Seinfeld Vista ad is out, and it's bizarre

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Join in the discussion. Here you'll see the comments in the order they were posted.

  • 46 Posted by ed_cavanaugh on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    The only reason I knew the ad was for Vista was the logo at the end. My wife saw it with me and was asking ?????

  • 47 Posted by angelnicole1109 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    Well, I'm onlt 14, but I haven't had any problems with vista that I haven't had with other operating systems. Anyway, the commercial made no sence to me. If anyone figers out what it's supposed to mean, please post a comment explaining it.

  • 48 Posted by heyyybuddy on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:18PM EDT Report Abuse

    Come on....get with it. This is part 1. From now on VISTA will be easier than whatever else they show, like buying shoes.

  • 49 Posted by mindlessherman on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    Plodding, stupid, terrible. And this cost much more than 10 million for Jerry. They probably spent 50 million on market research before they had the nads to do any creative, then who knows how much on ad agencies and production. Microsoft is a bloated, slow moving organization with very little creativity. There are two reasons they own the industry: games and peer pressure. Once businesses adopted windows everyone had to. While apply is overpriced and far from perfect when you use their products you fully understand what might have been. I can still remember my father talking about how macs were toys while practically unused ibm pc sat on his desk, languishing, next to a packaged copy of Wordstar he never got around to opening. That kind of shortsightedness gave us windows dominance. Same kind of mindset that elects republicans.

  • 50 Posted by fsims2002 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:04PM EDT Report Abuse

    Windoze Vista is still too buggy. I don't like it. Now, XP is good software. It does not crash much. Look. Microsoft needs to be more like Linux. Keep the proprietary stuff, and release the rest as open-source. Keep the kernel and let people add on the rest. Fair enough?

  • 51 Posted by kingscollegeca on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:51PM EDT Report Abuse

    I'm quite sure Jerry had a Mac in his apartment on TV. I have been a Mac user for years, but for $10,000,000 I would say nice things about Vista too.

  • 52 Posted by texwebs on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:02PM EDT Report Abuse

    It was about Vista? Go figure. As a former senior copywriter for a major regional ad agency where I worked on a large national account, they seemed to drop the ball a bit (especially considering the $10 million spent on Seinfeld) in that it's not great if viewer doesn't remember what the ad was about (product/brand name) or can't figure out what it was about in the first place (Vista?). I know/remember it was Microsoft but was Microsoft the point? Apparently not. If first part of campaign, maybe. Funny? Sort of if you like Seinfeld humor. Odd? Yep.

  • 53 Posted by ashpro2000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:58PM EDT Report Abuse

    Ok my first thought when I saw the commercial (on TV last night) was What the....?!! Second thought was it was a commercial to pave the way for Windows 7 which will be out next year (i think) as a way. But I think about it, it does exactly what it was meant to. It's funny, as Jerry Seinfeld always is, and it has ppl thinking about windows vista. An ordinary commercial is easy to ignore, but anything else, even a commercial that has you saying wtf afterward, is doing it's job. 50 posts on this one so far, that's more than those stupid freecreditreport.com commercials get. btw, Vista still sucks...I miss XP

  • 54 Posted by duckie1126 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:49PM EDT Report Abuse

    Everyone has been complaining about how many different versions there are of Vista (don't get me wrong... I agree). Perhaps the point to this commercial was to show everyone that although there are a variety of shoes out there; there is a pair out there for everyone (leather, flexible, size 10), i.e. Vista. The fact that Microsoft is hardly mentioned isn't the point. Bill Gates is recognizable. His name is mentioned by Seinfeld just in case the audience didn't recognize him. Everyone associates Microsoft with Gates. The only thing I would say is... don't assume that everyone gets the connection or the message. Could be a very costly mistake. It is doing it's job though... it's received publicity. Bad or good... publicity is publicity. Attention is attention. It got yours didn't it?

  • 55 Posted by connorlj1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:29PM EDT Report Abuse

    FastCompany did an article on the Ad company who took over the Microsoft account, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. You can read it here: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/believe-it-or-not-hes-a-pc.html These are the same guys who revitalized Burger King, so I will wait and see what comes next in this series...

  • 56 Posted by jasonp.lv on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:29PM EDT Report Abuse

    I just read an article in Yahoo news that this commercial wasnt about Vista specifically. It is a start of commercials for Microsoft and Windows in general. I kinda got that feeling when I saw the Windows Logo at the end but it didnt have the bubble around it like the logo on Vista does. The article says this commercial and others to follow are trying to counteract Apple's "Hi, I'm a Mac, Hi I'm a PC" commercials which makes MS/Windows out to be uncool.

  • 57 Posted by aaronneal on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:43PM EDT Report Abuse

    so vista is like buying a new pair of shoes-meaning it just needs to be broken in? Well, personally I would hope 'the broken in' part would be accomplished for me if im paying the money out of my pocket for a software that runs my entire system!!!

  • 58 Posted by mariacamillo on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:06PM EDT Report Abuse

    Pretty lame. Nothing surprising about that. But I wouldn't run WinDoze if you paid me. Well, unless you paid me 10 million dollars.

  • 59 Posted by andreacapron on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:53PM EDT Report Abuse

    You said that you didn't have any information leading toward hacking and lost passwords yet here you are writing a blog about it? Why are you writing about something YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT!?!?!!! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW YOU ----- !

  • 60 Posted by cvourtsis on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:32PM EDT Report Abuse

    I recently got a new pc, Vista Home Premium - the biggest issue I have with Vista (so far) - deleting a file now takes 4 clicks instead of 2. The system checks the checker...over and over and over. WHY? Can Jerry answer fix that?

  • 61 Posted by hinduhammer8 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    Not sure what all the garbage talk is about. I have Vista and actually like, have yet to have an issue with it. I still hate IE and their new office suite sucks, but have grown fond of vista and am certainly more stable than my previous computer.

  • 62 Posted by arzo242000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:58PM EDT Report Abuse

    I thought it was pretty funny. Chewy Computers!

  • 63 Posted by celtics464 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:20PM EDT Report Abuse

    I'm glad you posted this article because I honestly had no clue what the commercial was for. I actually checked to make sure that I had not accidentally changed the channel. So far it looks like a horrible idea but who knows what they have planned after this.

  • 65 Posted by kunzew on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    Getting people to talk about Vista is a bad idea, the more people investigate the more they will learn about the incompatibilities with software, horrific DRManagement etc. The only chance they have is to force people to buy it by removeing the xp option or by keeping people int eh dark..

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