No soup for Microsoft?
The software giant’s new ad starring Jerry Seinfeld has draw largely negative reviews online after premiering Thursday night during NBC’s broadcast of the National Football League’s season kickoff game.
The ad was the start of a highly anticipated $300 million advertising campaign that Microsoft is launching in attempt to rebuff Apple’s popular TV commercials, which have portrayed Microsoft and PCs as uncool.
In the commercial – which can be found at Microsoft.com and on video sharing sites – Seinfeld is walking through a mall when he spots Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at a “Shoe Circus” store. The comedian than helps Gates pick out a new pair of shoes while the jokes come quick: showering with clothes on, Gates being a “10,” platinum credit cards for a fictional shoe store.
It’s a zany ad that packs a lot of quirkiness into 90 seconds. With no direct mention of Microsoft or its operating system, Vista, the commercial concludes with the slogan: “The future, delicious.”
The ad was created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky – a firm with a reputation for oddness. Many technology and advertising blogs have turned to Seinfeld’s trademark comedy description – “nothing” – to describe the ad.
“Huh?” wrote Abbey Klaassen for Ad Age. “You could be forgiven for not knowing what the heck Microsoft’s new TV ad … was about.”
Dan Frommer, writing for the Silicon Alley Insider, pronounced the ad “not funny” and added that the mall shoe store setting “is not going to help Microsoft look any cooler.”
For the blog Techcrunch.com, Michael Arrington noted that the “tech and geek crowd is a little underwhelmed” by the ad, which he said is “a far cry from the brilliant Microsoft v. Mac ads.”
Brad Brooks, vice president of Windows consumer product marketing, said in a video posted on the Windows press Web site, that the ad is a “teaser” meant to “engage customers in a conversation … to get the conversation going again about what Windows means in people’s everyday lives.”
Even if the reaction was mostly negative, Microsoft’s ad has clearly succeeded in getting people talking.
TikTok’s Fate Arrives At Supreme Court; Arguments Center On Free Speech and National Security
In one of the most important cases of the social media age, free speech and national security collide at the Supreme Court on Friday in arguments over the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular digital platform that roughly half the people in the United States use for entertainment and information.
TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok's sale by its Chinese parent company.
Working on a tight deadline, the justices also have before them a plea from President-elect Donald Trump, who has dropped his earlier support for a ban, to give him and his new administration time to reach a "political resolution" and avoid deciding the case. It's unclear if the court will take the Republican president-elect's views — a highly unusual attempt to influence a case — into account.
TikTok and China-based ByteDance, as well as content creators and users, argue the law is a dramatic violation of the Constitution's free speech guarantee.
"Rarely if ever has the court confronted a free-speech case that matters to so many people," lawyers for the users and content creators wrote. Content creators are anxiously awaiting a decision that could upend their livelihoods and are eyeing other platforms.
The case represents another example of the court being asked to rule about a medium with which the justices have acknowledged they have little familiarity or expertise, though they often weigh in on meaty issues involving restrictions on speech.
The Biden administration, defending the law that President Joe Biden signed in April after it was approved by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress, contends that... Read More