The Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft ads will stop running as of today. I guess I was wrong.
Instead, Microsoft is running new ads featuring an actor who looks and dresses just like John Hodgman’s PC character, saying, “Hello, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”
Celebrity cameos continue (without Seinfeld), including Bill Gates, Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra. More importantly, the ads feature real-world Windows users who are the antithesis of the Hodgman character. One user states “I’m a PC” (via a white board) while scuba diving inside a shark cage.
It aims to turn a perceived negative — “being” a PC — into a positive. That’s the specialty of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the agency behind the ads. And that’s a switch that Microsoft must flip in consumers’ minds.
Apple has defined Microsoft for many with the “Get A Mac” ads, and now they’re trying to take their brand back by parading real customers in front of the camera. Windows users are not out-of-touch nerds who love their Excel spreadsheets as they do their own mother, they’re shark-diving scientists.
As for the “old” ads, Microsoft claims they intended to drop Jerry from the beginning, so we assume that Phase I, the Seinfeld ads, were meant to get people talking in preparation for Phase II. Still, they barely ran for two weeks and cost $10 million (Seinfeld’s take). That’s one hell of a conversation starter.
While better than the Seinfeld ads, the new ones have a schoolyard feel to me. I think of the kid who, after being called a nerd by his peers, can only reply with “AM NOT!”
However, I will note that I had one chance to tell Santa what I wanted, to convince him that I was worthy and do just enough schmoozing to ensure a bountiful Christmas morning. One chance.
Last weekend, Santa appeared at two libraries, the mall and the fish pier. Two weeks ago, he made five appearances, one involving a fire truck. For those of you not keeping score, that’s nine appearances in two weeks.
That’s ridiculous.
“Grace, did you tell Santa everything you’d like to get when you saw him in the VFW Lounge?”
“No. I forgot to say ‘Baby Alive.’”
“Don’t worry, sweetie. We can catch him next weekend at the retirement home, the police station, Kate’s Seafood and Lobster Shack, the corner of 4th street and Elm, Bank of America, the dump, The Wellfleet Oyster Festival (between 12:00 and 2:00) and/or Thompson’s Paints and Hardware on Rte. 3!”
“Gee, thanks, Dad! But, when does he have time to make the toys?”
“Go to bed.”
I told my wife, “We’ll see Santa once. That’s it. Can’t the kids tell them apart? I mean, they’ve got the suit, but they’re not identical.”
“Nah,” she says. “They just see the outfit and the beard. Santa is Santa to them.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” I said. “It’s like he’s on a media junket. Britney Spears made fewer public appearances last year.”
“Fine,” she said. So there we were last Sunday, bundled in the car and driving to the Lady’s Free Library to watch Santa and Mrs. Claus read a story, distribute candy canes and scare the living hell out of everyone under two.
Grace walked over and made her wishes known in a clear, matter-of-fact tone that said, “I fully expect to be accommodated.”
William, being two, shrank back in horror before muttering “purple truck.” We got our photos and everyone was happy.
On the way home, the kids were chewing on candy canes and I was fumbling for Christmas music on the iPod.
“There,” I said to my wife. “Wasn’t that nice? One simple visit. The kids were enchanted and we got a decent photo.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Do you think OH MY GOD BUZZ!”
“What?” I asked. She was as white as a sheet, her mouth hanging open. I thought, “Holy cow, she’s having a stroke.”
“Oh my God oh my GOOOOOOODDD,” she repeated.
“What?!”
“The fourth grade turtle. I was supposed to take him home this weekend. He’s been in the school the whole time with his heat lamp turned off. Oh my God, I’ve killed Buzz.”
My wife is a teacher. She thought she’d treat our kids last weekend by bringing home Buzz, the box turtle who lives in the fourth grade classroom.
She didn’t expect to be standing before the school on an icy December afternoon, watching as a police officer unlocked the door so she could “…see if the 4th grade turtle is dead.” Nor did she expect to be at the pet store on Sunday evening buying a box turtle.
If kids can’t tell one Santa from another, how hard could it be to fool them with turtles?
Two police officers met my wife at the school’s front door, their breath white clouds in front of their mouths, a look of impatience on their faces. “I’m sorry,” my wife said as the shorter of the two officers pulled the door open.
“It’s fine, m’am,” he said. She went into the cold building, the cops following behind her, and ran past empty lockers and dark classrooms until she reached the fourth grade.
I’m glad to report that Buzz survived his weekend alone. Despite chilly conditions and little food, he pulled through. A Christmas miracle. We were overjoyed.
We took him home to celebrate the rest of the holiday with us. Grace stuck a red bow on his shell. It’s hard to detect emotion in a turtle, but I’m pretty sure I saw a smile.
I fill it out at the top of each day. It helps me estimate how much time I might spend on a given project vs. how much time it actually takes, prioritize, monitor the “incidentals” that arrive in my inbox and keep things from getting out of hand.
It’s great to see the 3, 4 or 5 major tasks I intend to accomplish in black and white instead of floating in my head with all the incoming distractions.
Thanks, Dave! Your forms are wicked cool, as we say in New England.
A great interview with Erin Doland, editor at unclutterer.com.
“I have very few regrets in my life, and I owe a great deal of that to my parents’ insistence that I Seize Life. I have always taken chances, been a bit brazen, and risked a little to gain a lot. Anyone can live this way, and the benefits are truly spectacular.”
I could use your help. I’m setting up a Vanilla Forum. Everything is working well, except for the process of approving new users. When I click to confirm a user reqeust, I get the following error:
A fatal, non-recoverable error has occurred
Technical information (for support personel):
Error Message
An error occurred while sending the email.
Affected Elements
Email.Send();
For additional support documentation, visit the Lussumo Documentation website at: lussumo.com/docs
I tried Lifetick this week after Unclutter‘s Erin Doland mentioned it on Twitter. It’s pretty nice — define your goals and values plus steps to acheive them. View your progress with quite nice-looking charts.
This week, they announced an iPhone-optimized version as well as iCal integration. Check it out.
iPhone firmware 2.1 was released today, and I noticed that it adds an “Apps” statistic to the iPhone content bar in iTunes. That’s nice, but I don’t know how I feel about yellow, green and orange next to each other.
“Excluding their visually rich iPod ads, Apple’s commercials focus strongly on product; their Get A Mac campaign humorously illustrates the differences between Windows PCs and Macs, while the iPhone is advertised by simply showing the device’s innovative interface … The ‘Jerry and Bill’ advertisements, so far, only mention product in vague terms, usually resulting in a very stale routine of Seinfeld asking Gates about a “goldfish with a website” or edible computers.”
The interesting thing is that, for years, the opposite was true. Microsoft’s ads touted features while Apple’s were abstract. The “Window” iMac ad is a perfect example:
Today, Apple has abandoned the abstract for concrete information, and Microsoft has eliminated any mention of their products.
So what are those ads about? Well, they aren’t about Windows, and that’s the point. Vista is troublesome. XP is old. “PC,” as played by John Hodgman, is a self-conscious, out-of-touch dweeb in a drab, beige suit. Everyone (and I mean everyone) knows what Windows is. Everyone uses Microsoft products. They needn’t be told about either yet again.
The new ads are about associations. Jerry is funny, and by pairing him with Bill Gates (who, dare I say, actually seems kind of cool in these ads), Microsoft hopes that some of his snarky humor will become associated with their products in the consumers’ minds.
I like them a lot. They’re quirky, they make Bill Gates (arguably the quintessential geek), seem cool and they make me laugh. Apple fanboys will dismiss them as nonsensical, but they’re wrong. These ads are great.
No, they aren’t about Windows, Office, etc. That’s the point.
“…these ads are not meant to influence the immediate buying patterns of viewers, but instead to alter the long-term impression of the company that develops and markets the world’s leading desktop computer operating system.”
There exists a coven of blogging big-wigs who will tell you how, when and what to write. I’ve succumbed to their badgering thinking, “I should write about subject x, and format my posts like such-and-such. I must keep a huge RSS icon in the upper right hand corner and monitor which days of the week, posts and topics generate the most traffic.”
I’ve also thought, “I ought to emulate blogger x, whom I admire. If I wrote the same types of articles, I’ll seem smart and articulate, too.” The results were predictable — like a fledgling art student, I produced soulless knock-offs of popular works which inspired only yawns.
I wrote what I thought I should be writing, for the audience that I ought to target. I’d stress about producing timely posts and “pillar articles.” In short, blogging became work.
It wasn’t fun.
Lately, though, I’m noticing a new trend. People are saying “F the rules” and writing what pleases them. Merlin Mann is a great example. Recently, he reconsidered 43Folders’ purpose and goals, and I respect him for that. No longer content to post “…productivity pr0n” and the minutia of busywork, he’s shifted his focus to his interests.
My friend Krystyn started Squaregirl over the summer, and it’s terrific. Talk about honesty — Krystyn shares details of her life and work in beautiful, genuine posts. She’s so honest, in fact, that reading her posts makes me feel like a voyeur on the privileged end of a private conversation.
So that’s the plan for Hardcore Geek – writing about my interests and damn the rest to hell. No more “shoulds” or “woulds.” No more posts written out of a sense of obligation, or wanting to fit in or be noticed. No more formulaic articles or keyword-laden Google bait.
This blog has no mission. There is no purpose. I do not want to “help” you do, understand or learn something. This is not a tech blog, a knitting blog or a blog about the weird things ER docs find in people’s rectums. It’s about what interests me at any given time. If you dislike it, you know what to do.
But what about visitors, subscribers, hits? Christ, who cares? I’m not worried about any of that with this site. Earlier this week, Steve Jobs told CNBC, “…manage the top line and the bottom line will follow.” I agree.
