On the shuttering of Microsoft's Gates-Seinfeld ad campaign: for my part, I actually liked the ads (one and two).
Well, okay--"liked" is a strong word, and it doesn't really describe how I felt about them. "Appreciated" might be more accurate, because it was a complicated feeling.
Or, maybe: they didn't feel like your typical Microsoft ads, which, at least, was something.
John Gruber sort of nails it in "There's Nothing There", when he writes:
But they "worked" only insofar as they said nothing and dropped the pretense of saying something. The spots said nothing and reveled in the nothingness.
And I suppose that, in the end, what the ads made me feel most was sad. Sad that Bill Gates, who, after all these years, and despite being (once again) the richest man in the world, apparently doesn't feel like he understands "regular people" or why they use his company's products; and sad that Microsoft who, despite their being (still!) so dominant, still feel like they're losing--and by what they seem to be measuring, they're right.
That just seems like the worst kind of torture.
Comments