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First episode of Gates/ Seinfeld ad campaign is genius

Written on September 5, 2008 – 1:08 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Here it is, the first episode of the Seinfeld/ Gates commercial series. It’s part of a $300 million Microsoft ad campaign, led by famous ad-agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. It’s a product of Alex Bogusky’s extraordinary brain I can’t follow, ’cause the ad doesn’t get me excited yet. I realize that’s my own fault.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky is famous for its innovative and controversial ad campaigns for the Mini Cooper, Burger King, Molson and a recent mock porn movie made for Virgin Atlantic’s business travelers. Most of those ideas weren’t welcomed with warm applause either. Maybe this dull episode is the start of a surprisingly good and sophisticated series. It’s genius, but we, dazed and confused early adopters, don’t see it yet.

For now though, I’d like to quote Gizmodo’s Jason Chen:

Besides the slick and probably expensive editing designed to make Jerry Seinfeld look like the more awkward of the pair, there’s not a whole lot of special effects in this clip. In fact, there’s not really a whole lot of anything, including laughs, information or pimping of Vista.

Let’s see how we feel about this ad in a year.

I hope you like that post!

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ads, advertising, Bill Gates, Burger King, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Jerry Seinfeld, Microsoft, Vista

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Mischievous Monday Mornings: Where did ctrl+alt+delete come from?

Written on July 28, 2008 – 8:14 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

Hear David Bradley explain how and when he came up with the infamous windows shortcut. So funny to see Bill Gates’ humorless reaction here…

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Bill Gates, David Bradley, Microsoft, mmm

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LinkedIn just loves Facebook

Written on February 28, 2008 – 1:22 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Yesterday TechCrunch reported that LinkedIn would launch its new lay-out today. Mark Hendrickson wrote that ‘these updates feel like an attempt to mimic Facebook’. Well, LinkedIn is not just using Facebook as an inspiration for the design, also some marketing techniques are copied.

You might remember that Bill Gates joined Facebook a while ago, but left as he was overwhelmed with friend requests - around 8,000 per day. It created a good buzz, and that didn’t go unnoticed by LinkedIn.

Because, surprise surprise, the Microsoft Chairman has now asked a question on LinkedIn:

billgates

The answer is of course: stay on Facebook and talk with them! Before you go ahead and answer the question, you might want to check out this demo of the new LinkedIn features. Since whether they copy marketing techniques or not, they’re still a good service for professional networking.