Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s new work for Microsoft is on the air and being written about by The Wall Street Journal, among others.
The Journal found someone to bash it:
“Despite this attempt to be cool, the commercial does nothing to change Microsoft’s brand image, says Leslie Smolan, chief strategy officer at Carbone Smolan Agency, a New York-based branding firm.
“It’s big, it’s got deep pockets — certainly deep enough to buy any celebrity it wants,” Ms. Smolan said. “What it doesn’t have is creativity, the key ingredient Microsoft has always lacked.”
TechCrunch went another way and obtained an internal email from Microsoft SVP, Bill Veghte, about the commercial.
Today, we are kicking off a highly visible advertising campaign. The first phase of this campaign is designed to engage consumers and spark a new conversation about Windows – a conversation that will evolve as the campaign progresses, but will always be marked by humor and humanity.
Think of these ads as an icebreaker to reintroduce Microsoft to viewers in a consumer context. Later this month, as the campaign moves into its next phase, we’ll go much deeper in telling the Windows story and celebrating what it can do for consumers at work, at play and on-the-go.
My thought is the frat boys in Boulder snuck their patented collegiate humor in at the end, by getting the richest man in the world to “adjust his shorts.” That must be the “humanity” Veghte is talking about.
