Microsoft's Ad Campaign Implodes

Let me get this straight: Microsoft brags about spending US$300M and bagging Jerry Seinfeld for a series of ads, but after two weeks of responses consisting primarily of "huh?" and "yawn!" they bag Jerry and float out a new series of conventional ads that whine about being stereotyped.

OK…

Even more intriguing, they trot out their PR firm to announce the change in strategy as "planned all along," instead of letting the ad agency control the messaging itself. (h/t to Daring Fireball.)

This tells me two things. First, Microsoft didn't have the courage of their convictions to stick out a different approach to re-making their corporate image. Sure, they can get their PR firm to gin up a few trend research firms to say that the buzz from Jerry's ads was great, but that buzz must be happening over in Bizarro World because it sure isn't happening in any part of the 'net (or meatspace, for that matter) that I inhabit. The reality is that the ad campaign was too risky for the staid, risk-averse corporate culture that is Microsoft today.

Second, it tells me that they're scared to death because they haven't got a clue about how to counter the negative publicity around their bread-and-butter OS. Apple has executed very well (my previous rant excluded), expanded into entirely new areas (music, video download, mobile phones) that generate significant growth and revenue, and have rehabilitated a brand that most folks were writing off around the turn of the century. Meanwhile, Microsoft's only significant achievement has been in gaming with the Xbox—where margins are razor-thin and the competition is enormous. They no longer know how to innovate in the personal computer market and they're too scared to make a bold move there. (And the "bold" ones they do attempt are just dumb.)

I see a lot of parallels between Microsoft and the old Soviet Union. Both were dead a long time before they realized it, but they kept moving because of their enormous momentum. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed, and Microsoft appears headed down the same path.