Smartphone Thoughts: The Adventures of Jerry and Bill: Shoe Circus

"During the NFL season opener on September 4, Microsoft aired the first of the ads that it paid agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky $300 million-plus to create to help make over the company’s image. No mentions or even thinly veiled references to Apple. And there is only an indirect reference to Windows."

I was a huge fan of the Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman. If you haven't seen those hilarious Jerry Seinfeld commercials, they were a little 2-5 minute webisodes that were used to promote American Express. One of the best marketing campaigns on the planet, at least in my opinion, because it actually had me going out and searching high and low for these commercials. Once again Jerry has managed to make lightning strike twice with the first of hopefully many Jerry and Bill dynamic duo commercials. If you have seen some of Bill Gates classic spoof videos of the past, such as Bill Gates' Last Day of Work, you will be happy to know that this new campaign has the same feel. Whether you love Microsoft or hate Microsoft I think it is safe to assume that everyone will love on camera Bill Gates - he is hilarious.

One thing I am grateful for is that these advertisements make a point to not mention Apple and the series of smear advertisements Apple has put out in the past few years. When I first heard about Microsoft's new campaign to combat the Apple advertisements, I just envisioned Microsoft's version of "I'm a Mac," which made me cringe a little inside. I've always felt Microsoft's products were better than that and now releasing something that will make people laugh instead of thinking they eat babies for breakfast will do wonders for their public image while at the same time making Apple look petty and negative for their series of commercials... which when you stop and think about it, if you have to mention your competitors products in your advertisements and bad mouth them the whole time only to sell a tiny fraction of the amount of products they sell, how good is your product, really?