You remember the two Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld ads, right? The ones where Seinfeld and Gates are shoe shopping, as well as the spending retirement with the common folks made the tech community, as well as the rest of the world, give out a collective “WTF!?!” Well, the ads are no more.
The $300 million dollar ad campaign is dropping Jerry from all future commercials but insists this action was all part of the plan. Right. In an attempt to be “cool” the next have of commercials will have guest spots from Eva Longoria, hip-hop star Pharrell Williams and the author Deepak Chopra. Not exactly the embodiment of “cool”. Talented, yes. Cool, no.
I may be out of touch these days but the appearance of cool isn’t so much about who uses your product was the image you give your product. Apple comes off a sexy, young and stylish. Microsoft comes off as, well, out of touch with users. Just to point out this perceptions issue is the for the U.S. auto industry. Scion, sexy. Ford, old man.
Instead of trying to take on Google, Apple and *nix, Microsoft needs to spend some time determining what they want to be when they grow up. From there the company can develop a road map on how to compete, which would stop the continual throwing of money at their problems with little to no success.