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Why Is Bill Gates Selling Shoes?

the Dagman

the Dagman

Commodore
Commodore
During last night's tv viewing, most likely like many of you, I saw the new commercial featuring the unlikely buddy duo of Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.

I don't know about the rest of you, but it had me wondering "WTF is Bill Gates doing in a tv commercial? The guy is a billionaire. He doesn't need this money or the spotlight." Only to be followed by, "For that matter, WTF is Jerry Seinfeld doing in a commercial as well? He has hundreds of millions of dollars and doesn't need to resort to this cheese for a payday either." Only at the end was it apparent that this was a Windows Vista ad. The whole thing didn't exactly make me want to out and buy a new copy of the OS (still running XP just fine on my Windows box). But I am talking about it here, so I guess it was effective on some level. I did think it was pretty funny that Gates used his mugshot from when he was arrested for excessive speed back in the 70s for the pic of him on his shoe store membership card. But that is hardly enough to make up for not actually selling the product it was trying to advertise. In fact, I mostly forgot about the ad until I just read some story about it's debut a few minutes ago.

What did you think of this commercial?
 
I dare say I like it. It's just plain weird to see them like that in an everyday situation. I bet it's been fun for them, which might have been a good reason to do it.
 
The commercial is rather esoteric. And seeing Gates shake his hiney is just bizarre. Gates and Seinfeld have good chemistry though. Maybe the later editions will actually feature some computer products. lol
 
It's a bit weird and forces you to watch.

It's not really designed to sell Microsoft products directly I think.

I suspect it's more a rebranding exercise to change how people (by which I mean the vast majority of people, not ardent supporters of Macs, Linux, or whatever) view the company. As such, it has the potential to be effective depending on the future ads in the series. If they can neutralise/reverse some of the distrust of the corporation, and humanise it a bit, I suspect MS will be very happy.
 
I think the message will become clear over the series of the ads. The most surprising thing for me is that Bill Gates is a decent straight man! :techman:
 
Holdfast said:
It's a bit weird and forces you to watch.

It's not really designed to sell Microsoft products directly I think.
Click to expand...

I just found a transcript of Bill and Jerry talking about making a commercial:

[Jerry and Bill in the mall thinking of ideas for their commercial.
Bill(Just throwing it out there): This should be the commercial.
Jerry: What?
Bill: This, just talking.
Jerry(Dismissing): Yeah, right.
Bill: No I'm serious that sounds like a good idea.
Jerry: Just talking? What's the product?
Bill: It's nothing.
Jerry: No product?
Bill: No, forget the product.
Jerry: You've got to have a product.
Bill: Who says you gotta have a product? Remember when we were waiting buying shoes in the mall? That could be the commercial.
Jerry: And who is in this commercial? Who are the characters?
Bill: I could be a character.
Jerry: You?
Bill: Yeah. You could base a character on me.
Jerry: So, in the commercial, there's a character named Bill Gates?
Bill: Yeah. There's something wrong with that? I'm a character. People are always saying to me, "You know you're a quite a character."
Jerry: And who else is in the commercial?
Bill: The guy who runs the shoe store..
Jerry: Now he's a character.....So everybody in the mall is a character in the commercial?
Bill: Right.
Jerry: And it's selling nothing?
Bill: Absolutely nothing.
Jerry: So you're saying, I go to Madison Avenue, and tell them I got this idea for a commercial selling nothing.
Bill: WE go to Madison Avenue.
Jerry: "We"? Since when are you a writer?
Bill(Scoffs): Writer. We're talking about a commercial.
Jerry: You want to go with me to Madison Avenue?
Bill: Yeah. I think we really go something here.
Jerry: What do we got?
Bill: An idea.
Jerry: What idea?
Bill: An idea for the commercial.
Jerry: I still don't know what we're selling!
Bill: We're selling nothing!
Jerry: Right.
Bill: Everybody's selling something. We'll sell nothing!
Jerry: So, we go to Madison Avenue, we tell them we've got an idea for a commercial selling nothing.
Bill: Exactly.
Jerry: They say, "What's your commercial selling?" I say, "Nothing."
Bill: There you go.
Jerry (After a moment of pause): I think you may have something there.
Click to expand...
 
It wasn't funny. It was trying really, really hard to be quirky and random. Very lame.

And it doesn't make you want to buy Vista, or change the fact that Vista bombed and XP is anchient crap.
 
A commercial with a bunch of bells and whistles that seem to make it harder to get to the actual point? Seems appropriate.
 
That commercial was... interesting. Kind of fun. But weird. I agree with someone who said this seems more about trying to rebrand the vibe around the company than anything else. The bit about the end, with the brains of jupiter and the cake stuff seems to HINT at a theme, maybe innovation, but its not clear enough.

Honestly I feel like Bill Gates and Seinfeld just did it soley for their own amusement so they could hang out together.
 
Chess Piece Face said:
It wasn't funny. It was trying really, really hard to be quirky and random. Very lame.

<Snip>.
Click to expand...

^ Exactly. The whole time I was watching it (while winging back across the USA on JetBlue), I was thinking that very thought.

Plus, a big 'WTFO?' (:wtf:), but that's another story...

Cheers,
-CM-
 
I've read that these new Jerry Seinfeld commercials are in-part a response to the successful Apple commercials (with the Mac and PC guys). Except that I didn't think it was funny. At all. It was just... awkward.
 
I'm not sure that selling shoes makes sense for Bill, but I like the idea of Vista Stress-Relieving Bath Salts.
 
The point of this commercial is hard to understand, but I guess it'll make more sense when the other ads air. The Mac/PC spots are much funnier.
 
^ I agree on the latter part... And right now, I can't wait to see where the ad folks at Apple go with mocking this series, because there was some seriously good potential there

(Ranking right up there with the current "PC in a Pizza Box" one... :guffaw:)


Cheers,
-CM-
 
Chevron Guy said:
The Mac/PC spots are much funnier.
Click to expand...

Apple has almost always had great advertising the past 32 years. They were (and are) the individual's computer. User-friendly and approachable.

Microsoft tried SO HARD to create the image of the CORPORATE computer for so long that when they try to come off as down-to-earth and personal, they look ridiculous and completely insincere.

Even IBM's PC advertising, using the likeness of Charlie Chaplin 30 years ago, came off as false and trying way too hard to be "friendly".

--Ted
 
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