Microsoft News Tracker

Crispin Porter + Bogusky missed the rumored July start date of their $300 million "Microsoft is cool" advertising campaign, but Suzanne Vranica and Robert A. Guth at the WSJ have hints as to what to expect when it finally arrives on September 4th:

Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.’s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld.

The software giant’s new $300 million advertising campaign, devised by a newly hired ad agency, has been closely guarded. But Mr. Seinfeld will be one of the key celebrity pitchmen, say people close to the situation. He will appear with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in ads and receive about $10 million for the work, they say.

It’s always possible that this may be a stroke of genius, but somehow it doesn’t seem promising. Reinforcing that impression is the further rumor that the theme of the campaign is supposedly "Windows, Not Walls" and will stress "connecting people and ideas." I just hope they didn’t talk Mr. Gates into another goofy future digital lifestyle demo like he used to give at CES (cf. 2006 and 2007- they were hyping connected experiences then too), although that might work if they played it for laughs.

I would also observe that the original buzz was that the focus of the campaign was to be all of Microsoft’s consumer products, but this seems to be a Vista exclusive.