What’s the deal with Seinfeld doing ads for Microsoft? He’s a MAC User!!

Published on August 21st, 2008

What’s the deal with Seinfeld doing ads for Microsoft? – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) —

And I thought Gates was retired. WTF?? And, if you read the whole piece you’ll realize that all it will take for this whole campaign to backfire is for one already rich celebrity to balk at the offer and say he prefers a Mac. I can see it now. “Actor says he’d rather use a Mac rather than take $10 million.” It would be a marketing disaster and it is waiting to happen.

Microsoft has set aside $300 million for an ad campaign featuring once-funny comedian Jerry Seinfeld in a series of advertisements targeting Apple. [Insert "master of his domain" joke here. -Ed.]

According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will pay Seinfeld $10 million to appear in a series of ads for its “Windows, Not Walls” campaign that will feature Seinfeld and Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman. According to AdWeek, other highly-relevant comics like Chris Rock and Will Ferrell may also appear in the ads.

Wired notes that Microsoft’s “choice of Seinfeld was an effort to avoid pandering to the kids with ‘a celebrity that was too hip.’” Mission accomplished.

Found by Paul Salzman who notes that Jerry had a Mac on his show in every episode. What a bunch of boneheads!

47 users responded in " What’s the deal with Seinfeld doing ads for Microsoft? He’s a MAC User!! "

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# 1 Improbus said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:19 am

Well to Microsoft this amount of money is less than pocket change. This has monkey boys finger prints all over it.

# 2 Personality said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:21 am

Jerry never even touched the mac in the background as far as I can remember… He can work that into his jokes.

# 3 jerquiaga said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:28 am

True John, we should go ahead and believe that everything we see on TV is reality. I’m sure that Seinfeld’s life is EXACTLY the same as the TV show, and that everything in his TV show apartment is EXACTLY the same as his real life apartment.

In this one John, you are the bonehead, sorry to say.

# 4 Somebody_Else said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am

Doesn’t that make the ad better if a guy who was always surrounded by Apple products is now doing Windows ads?

I’m surprised it’s taken this long for Microsoft to start doing damage control. They really need to stop the Vista FUD.

# 5 DJ Solomon Grundy said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:33 am

Let me begin with stating… I do not hate Apple Inc. but “had a Mac on his show”…? Hello Mac fan boys, show = fantasy. It is a prop, not what he may or may not use personally. Although it would be sardonic if he did…

# 6 Greg Allen said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:35 am

I’d give up my Mac for $10 million dollars.

Any less than that and it’s iffy.

# 7 Olo Baggins of Bywater said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:39 am

#6…you’ve shown us what kind of a user you are, that you can be purchased, now it’s just a matter of negotiation.

# 8 Sinn Fein said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:43 am

(Kramer making his usual zooming entrance into Jerry’s apartment)

KRAMER: JERRY! I just got this GREAT deal on a whole truck load of Vista PCs!!!

JERRY: Please…tell me you didn’t buy’em from a guy named Gates.

KRAMER: Uhhhhh, how’d you know??

JERRY: He’s been pulling that scam for years, can’t unload them any other way. By the way, how’d you pay for them?

KRAMER: Uhhhhhh, I sort of borrowed your American Express Card.

# 9 geofgibson said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:45 am

#6 – Me too, then I’d buy 2 or 3 new ones. Can you say 8 core tower, Xserve, Xsan, and Final Cut Pro 6 with an AJA doing 10 bit uncompressed HD? Yummy!

# 10 QB said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:48 am

Seinfeld is one of the crazy ones.

# 11 Steven Long said, on August 21st, 2008 at 10:49 am

I’ll reserve judgment until I actually see an ad. They might be clever and memorable. Or it might be flushing 1/30th of their Vista Defense ad budget.

# 12 chuck said, on August 21st, 2008 at 11:30 am

Jerry already did an ad for HP laptops a while back. If he’s a mac user, he’s keeping it a secret.

# 13 Mister Mustard said, on August 21st, 2008 at 11:32 am

>>an ad campaign featuring once-funny
>>comedian Jerry Seinfeld

I must have missed the “funny” part.

# 14 tcc3 said, on August 21st, 2008 at 11:35 am

They could just make the ads full of lies and exaggerations about how awful OS X is. Its been working for Apple…

# 15 chuck said, on August 21st, 2008 at 11:53 am

Hmmm. Couldn’t they take the $300 million, and offer it to all the hardware manufacturers as an incentive to update their device drivers for Vista?

I’d use Vista if:
1. It worked with my hardware.
2. It ran as fast or faster than WinXP.
3. It could run all my old software.

I really don’t care how many comedians they pay to like it.

# 16 McCullough said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Wonder what the Bubble Boy uses.

# 17 Somebody_Else said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm

#15
1. Hardware support outside printers and gadgets is excellent. Most driver issues were resolved within the first few months after the consumer launch, just like every other Windows release.

2. It already is:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp

3. Most software should work fine, although some things like virus scanners, disk defragmenters, etc need to be Vista compatible. If you use the 64-bit version you lose 16-bit app support, although you can still emulate old DOS applications with programs like DOSBox.

I’ve found Vista’s backwards compatibility to be excellent, at least for gaming.

These are exactly the sort of questions and issues that Microsoft needs to address with these ad campaigns.

# 18 Roedi said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Briljant move of MS. They haven’t payed anything yet, and they already are all over the press. For free. They start to learn from Stevie. Let Stevie pay for the ads, let MS talk about copying it, targeting Apple, whatever, and look who’s there? The media, stumbling over their feet to be on top of… of what?

# 19 Mister Mustard said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:37 pm

#17 – Else

>>2. It already is:

I don’t know about “gaming benchmarks”, as I don’t play that many games.

But for everyday use, Vista is a TOTAL DOG. I have one Vista machine, and I go to great lengths not to use it. Ugh. I had another Vista machine (which was also a dog), and I upgraded it back to XP. Now it’s faster than a speeding bullet. I have a third XP machine, with about half the resources of either of the Vista ones, and the performance is brisk, it never gives me “xxx NOT RESPONDING” coffee breaks, and I have no problems at all.

Maybe for gaming freaks and people who want to use a 64-bit OS on a virtual supercomputer, Vista has some advantages.

For the vast majority of home and business users though, it’s a total POS. I’d go back to Windows 3.1 before I’d get another Vista machine.

# 20 jerquiaga said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:49 pm

#19 – Ah Mustard, back to your old FUD spreading ways, eh? We’ve missed you…

# 21 chmilar said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Spielberg replaced the guns with walkie-talkies in ET. Maybe MS will pay to digitally replace Jerry’s Macs with PC’s in all episodes of Seinfeld.

# 22 Mr. Fusion said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Let’s wait until the ads appear before judging. Give Seinfeld credit though, he knows how to make a buck.

# 23 SuperBK said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:55 pm

I bet Jerry can sell more computers than Lloyd Braun!

# 24 Mister Mustard said, on August 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm

#20 – Jerk

Hey. I’m just saying. And I’m not the only one. YMMV.

Maybe if living in Mom’s basement playing video games is your life, 64-bit Vista is the OS for you.

For the rest of us, not so much.

And who’s calling whom a “bonehead”??

HAW!!

# 25 Jman said, on August 21st, 2008 at 1:15 pm

#24

the jerk store called and they’re running out of you

# 26 Sai Kai Lee said, on August 21st, 2008 at 1:41 pm

I would guess that %95 of the people that bark about Vista being a dog, have never actually tried using it.

I have 64-bit Vista on my home machine, and I can honestly say;

#1. I personally, have never seen Vista crash.
#2. The speed is just fine, more memory is better.
#3. It plays games very well, including 64 bit variants like Crysis 64.

What’s not to love about Vista? The advertising, and thats about it.

SKL

# 27 QB said, on August 21st, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Hmmmm. No one finds it ironic that Seinfeld was once featured in an Apple ad. Oh well, back to insults.

Only 16 more days until Spore. Wonder if that’ll run 64 bit native?

# 28 David said, on August 21st, 2008 at 2:07 pm

Mister Mustard is totally right. You need expensive hardware if you want Vista to do anything other than sit there and look pretty. And then good luck with your old software once you get the new hardware. Though I guess if all you ever use is Microsoft Word every once in a while you might think it works pretty well.

# 29 Uncle Patso said, on August 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Because I am such a total and complete CHEAPSKATE, I still run Win98SE, but as fewer and fewer new pieces of hardware and software will work with that, I may find myself trying XP sometime soon.

Just as with most high-end games, the top commercial operating systems are designed for _next_year’s_ computer hardware. This has been part of MS’s strategy since the beginning. (Don’t worry if it’s slow, with Moore’s Law, next year’s hardware will run it just fine.)

# 30 Floyd said, on August 21st, 2008 at 2:37 pm

That picture shows a very old Mac. It’s either a non-working prop, or it’s there because Apple paid the studio for some product placement. It’s the same deal as having Jeff Goldblum hack into the alien spaceship with a Macintosh laptop (oh really?) in the “Independence Day” flick. I suspect the Soup Nazi was a product placement also (Al Yaganeh’s been selling a lot of soup at Costco these days).

# 31 B. Dog said, on August 21st, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Maybe Seinfeld thinks it’s funny (+money).

I could smell Vista months before it was released, and bought a notebook and desktop with XP to replace my old Windows 98 machines. I sold the nice Sony Windows 98 notebook on eBay and the old desktop has Ubuntu on it. Ubuntu isn’t bad, except that Adobe hasn’t written a decent Flash player for Linux yet.

# 32 jlm said, on August 21st, 2008 at 3:15 pm

the Mac on his TV show set was purchased for the same reason most Mac users purchase one…looks

# 33 jim h said, on August 21st, 2008 at 4:07 pm

I think this is a good thing – Microsoft so desperately needs to get a sense of humor. Since forever, MS has sold primarily to corporations and OEMs, while Apple has marketed more directly to users. It’s interesting to see that MS now feels it needs to start reaching the public directly. I think they’ve been really stung by the bad Vista press and by these PC Guy-Mac Guy ads.

Microsoft has never really cared whether end users like their products – they’re not the ones who’ve bought the licenses. They’ve always ignored or patronized the people who really use the products.

# 34 Mark T. said, on August 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Like Seinfeld needs the money. The guy has to be worth between $500 million to a $1 billion.

Anyway, I can see it now…

In his typical standup act whiny voice and a twinge of his trademark bewilderment in his voice, Seinfeld says “What’s the deal with Microsoft? Who ARE these people?”

# 35 pedro said, on August 21st, 2008 at 6:04 pm

#3 Well, if we go by Seinfeld’s own words, he loves cereals & is a huge fan of Superman. Those were also heavily present in the background & on many skits in the show.

#12 That is also true.

#26 That “never used vista” defense is quite old. Get a new one. Vista sucks!

# 36 jim h said, on August 21st, 2008 at 6:04 pm

I’ve often found Seinfeld very funny and I think he’s a great ‘concept’ humorist. He and Gates together could be terrific. I say go for it.

Look at it this way – what does MS have to lose at this point? They’re so far behind Apple, they can’t even see Steve Jobs due to the curvature of the earth. It’s not like a bad ad campaign could hurt their sales.

# 37 Likes2LOL said, on August 21st, 2008 at 6:16 pm

I don’t think this is such a good career move for Jerry Seinfeld. This is gonna be like judging Superbowl commercials.

BTW, should we include the original Macintosh and Windows 1.0 ads in the overall competition?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL4hyATkQ74
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

Bonus: here’s a clip of Gates giving high praise to the Mac:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvskEGWMLp4

Such a prescient visionary!

# 38 Likes2LOL said, on August 21st, 2008 at 6:21 pm

Extra Bonus: Steve Jobs on Microsoft:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upzKj-1HaKw

# 39 Mister Mustard said, on August 21st, 2008 at 6:33 pm

#36 – ‘dro

>>That “never used vista” defense is quite
>>old. Get a new one. Vista sucks!

Wow! ¡Que chévere! You’re finally getting with the program, ‘dro! Kudos to you!

# 40 bill said, on August 21st, 2008 at 7:07 pm

Is Jerry a ‘APPLE MOLE?”

I mean it would enable him to find out about any ‘new developments’ at MS… ha!

Or is it a case of ‘any publicity’ is ‘good publicity’…

Maybe the new Linux based MS OS!

# 41 pedro said, on August 21st, 2008 at 7:19 pm

#40 I’ve been saying that vista sucks for as long as I’ve been posting on the blog.

# 42 auramac said, on August 21st, 2008 at 11:34 pm

Vista sucks, everybody knows it- Seinfeld is an idiot to take money and make a fool of himself. Gates doesn’t know how to walk away gracefully, either, apparently.

# 43 JimD said, on August 22nd, 2008 at 5:52 am

Seinfeld’s Commercial for Vista ??? A Promo about ***NOTHING*** !!! Just like his show !!!

[Insert "master of his domain" joke here. -Ed.]
- Windoze Vista – the O/S for WANKERS !!!

# 44 OhForTheLoveOf said, on August 22nd, 2008 at 7:52 am

#19 – Maybe for gaming freaks and people who want to use a 64-bit OS on a virtual supercomputer, Vista has some advantages.

Vista offers no advantage to gamers. DX10 turns out to be a bust, offering no particularly significant improvement in graphics… and it’s so-called “proprietary” attachment to Vista is bullshit.

Vista, as a basic operating system works fine. But it offers no compelling advantage over XP and is bundled with a Swiss Army collection of bloat.

# 45 edbauer said, on August 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm

John: Please…you should know this by now:

MAC = Media Access Control

Mac = Apple Macintosh Computer

*Sigh*

# 46 pedro said, on August 22nd, 2008 at 8:37 pm

Way better if you just write the whole thing in lowercases: mac

# 47 Paul Salzman said, on August 24th, 2008 at 10:26 pm

For all of you ignoramuses that said stuff like, “the show’s just fantasy and not reality” you obviously don’t know much about Seinfeld. The fact is, Jerry used to adorn his “apartment” on the set with stuff he loved, such as Superman, Porsche, cereal, Klein bicycles and Macs. Everyone knows that Jerry is a devout Porschephile, for instance, and owns many of them. He even used on in his American Express series with Superman.

Jerry has kids now and has to pay the bills, so why not take a big paying deal from MS. The idiots at MS that hired him, probably never even noticed the Macs on his set or the Think Different ad he was in. I smell PR disaster, typical of Microsoft’s recent marketing blunders.

I don’t hate MS—I just think they’re marketing idiots.

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