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Windows Vista: The OS About Nothing

Microsoft's new Windows ad, featuring Jerry Seinfeld, is outdated and not very funny -- but it's highly revealing of all that's wrong out there in Redmond.

The background: Windows is losing market share to Apple's Mac OS and even Linux. And Vista, the latest version, has been a big fat dud. Businesses have shunned it outright, and many consumers find it unintuitive and difficult to use.

So, Microsoft hired "award winning" agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky -- at a reported cost of $300 million -- to give Vista, and the Windows franchise in general, an image makeover. The Seinfeld ad debuted Thursday and it's the first piece of an integrated marketing campaign covering TV, the Web, and point-of-sale outlets.

It's not going to work.

The ad shows Seinfeld helping Microsoft chairman Bill Gates buy shoes at a discount store. Gates opts for a pair called The Conquistador. "They run very tight," Seinfeld warns. It does not get any funnier than that.

But it's a remarkable, 90-second second encapsulation of why Microsoft is going to have a tough time thriving in the Web 2.0 world, where consumers -- not agencies and marketers -- decide what's in.

For starters, what does the decision to use a 54-year-old, white, multimillionaire comedian, whose show went off the air 10 years ago, as the centerpiece of a campaign that's supposed to give Windows a hip new image and help Microsoft reconnect with younger buyers, tell us about the company?

Mostly that it's dominated by middle-aged white guys who made their own millions more than a decade ago and who are woefully out of touch with America's changing demographics and any generation that doesn't go by the initials BB.

These guys probably still think the Fonz is cool.

The ad also is a good metaphor for Windows Vista itself. Despite the hype surrounding its launch (Dan Lyons, aka "Fake Steve", thinks Microsoft deliberately leaked Seinfeld's involvement to generate some buzz), the first spot is being greeted with a resounding, "Huh?"

It doesn't even mention Windows. Sure, it's not always necessary to drill a product's name directly into consumers' skulls by mentioning it 60 times in 60 seconds, but even Microsoft appears to be conceding that the connection is too obscure. It's already put out a press release explaining it:

"Some may wonder what Jerry Seinfeld helping Bill Gates pick out a new pair of shoes has to do with software," Microsoft concedes. No, probably everyone who watched the ad is wondering what shoes and Seinfeld have to do with software.

The answer, Microsoft says, is nothing. Oh, right -- that's so very Seinfeld.

The deliberate obscurity shows just how sclerotic Microsoft has become. It's a form of brand-first advertising that says, "Never mind our products, hooking up with Microsoft is a gas." It's just like hanging out with Jerry, Elaine, and the rest of the gang at the coffee shop.

(Apologies to readers under 30 who don't get these references, but you can catch reruns on Fox after the nightly news. Sorry, "nightly news" was a form of broadcast journalism where highly paid anchors once ... never mind.)

Here's the problem. The effectiveness of brand-driven advertising died about the same time Seinfeld hit syndication. Gen Y buyers, especially when it comes to tech, want to find stuff on their own or through friends. When they find something that works, they'll use it. If not, it's off to the next thing. They're big into mashups and exhibit zero brand loyalty.

Yet, here comes Microsoft, in spandex, leg warmers, and headband, spending $300 million on a big honking brand campaign at the very time that no longer works.

Think I'm off the mark? What's the most successful software company in the world right now? (Hint: its stock trades at about $450 per share.) Right. Now, how much does Google spend on TV advertising. If you said "fifty bucks", you'd be wrong by fifty bucks. In fact, have you ever seen a Google ad, anywhere?

Ever seen an ad for Craigslist? For Facebook?

No, because Google and those other guys get that Web 2.0 has just three rules for success. Your product must be easy to find online and easy to use, and it must do what it's supposed to do. Get those things right and you can build a global, multibillion-dollar empire without spending a dime on marketing. You don't need has-beens from network TV, itself a has-been.

Microsoft? It hasn't learned these rules. It's too busy, in the words of Windows senior VP Bill Veghte, trying to "deliver a world-class shopping experience that aligns with the brand promise of our online presence." What???

Leaving aside for a moment the delicate question of, "WHO THE HELL TALKS LIKE THAT?", Veghte's comment, embedded in a canned PR release, shows that Microsoft is still obsessed with marketing buzzwords, focus groups (like the Mojave Experiment -- less said about that the better) and overpaid brand consultants.

None of that has anything to do with fixing its real problem.
At at time when users want software that's elegant, slick, and simple, Microsoft insists on bloated operating systems and applications, and ladling on all sorts of extra detritus through subsequent service packs.

In a sign that Redmond is drifting even farther from planet reality, Microsoft, as part of the Seinfeld launch, said Thursday that it's discovered that Vista was never the problem. Nope, all along it's been those stupid hardware makers, whose crude computing devices, barely evolved from the abacus, were never capable of showing Vista's true brilliance.

So, going forward, Microsoft will dispatch its best engineers to babysit the dullards at vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Gateway. "Veghte and the team are driving changes in the engineering behind Windows PCs, and working closely with manufacturers to improve and enhance hardware performance," Microsoft says.

Why do I have this feeling that, by "enhance," Microsoft means ordering PC makers not to roll out anything less than octo-core machines with at least 32 GB of system memory if they want their "Windows 7 Capable" stickers.

Finally, what's Bill Gates doing in the Windows commercials? Isn't the campaign supposed to be about the new Microsoft? About how the company is embracing the Web and mobility and, in the words of Veghte, showing customers "the promise of Windows in their lives tomorrow?"

Isn't Gates that client-server guy from yesterday? And didn't Gates recently retire from day-to-day duties at Microsoft.

Microsoft's decision to launch its highest-profile advertising campaign in years with a spot starring 50-something Jerry Seinfeld alongside its lame-duck chairman reveals a company that is dedicated to marching forthrightly into the future, facing backwards.

Instead of Seinfeld, it should have hired Adam Sandler, who did that "Backwards Man" routine on SNL. (Sorry, "Saturday Night Live" was this comedy show that debuted on NBC in ... forget it, look it up on Wikipedia.)

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