Well, everyone got what they wanted. Those zany Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld ads (see 1 and 2) are out of the picture and now we’ll never see what they were building up to. That upsets me. Then again, I didn’t whip out the $10 million for Seinfeld.
In their stead, Crispin’s hired a dead-ringer for John Hodgman, the stodgy but lovable “humorist” who personifies PC in Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” ads. (See Hodgman pose as free pizza in the most recent spot. He’s so cute!)
According to Engadget, the new effort is a direct rebuttal to the “Mac vs. PC” ads, which have become part of popular culture. One even starts out with the John Hodgman lookalike saying, “Hello, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”
Sounds serious. But it can’t all be dire, given the celebrity cameo line-up: Eva Longoria, Pharrell Williams, Deepak Chopra and Bill Gates himself will be appearing in the campaign. (Note the conspicuous absence of a certain comedian whose surname rhymes with “mind meld.”)
Like Engadget, I am confused. This whole thing sounds … planned! The official statement from Microsoft only muddies the waters: “We will be executing the second phase of our advertising campaign tomorrow, as planned from the start.”
Either Microsoft is too proud to admit it bowed to public backlash, or it’s trickier than we thought. We’ll find out soon.
