I know that many people have complained about the Seinfeld/Gates ads, but I liked them. In fact, I would watch a sitcom every week starring Jerry and Bill. I think it’s funny. But i really like Seinfeld and I really like Bill. So I suppose I’m biased. Also, there’s a third ad I believe which is supposed to rock.

That said… these new ads where everyone says “I’m a PC” I think are even better. They’ve basically ruined Apple’s commercials. In the first five seconds of every one of Apple’s commercials you now hear the words “I’m a PC” — Microsoft’s new tag line (which hopefully they’ll stick with). The commercials use Bill in a great way. They humanized Bill in the Seinfeld spots and now they have him shopping for groceries in these new ads. If they hadn’t done the Seinfeld ads then a billionaire getting his groceries wouldn’t play, but now it does. And it’s cute!

What can Apple do now?

1. ignore the windows ads (which i doubt they will since they’re the ones inviting the dialogue)
2. dump their campaign (i can’t imagine they’ll admit defeat like this… too big an ego)
3. find a way to skewer the new Microsoft campaign in theirs. I suppose this will be their best option. But I’ll be curious to see how they do it, because from my perspective anything they try to do will end up looking like them attacking Windows customers. Not the Windows product or Microsoft. And then they’ll just look like bullies.

What should Microsoft do now?

Stick with it. Don’t stop. Keep going. Faster, better, more. They need to have a loud voice in the dialog. Focused, disciplined, repetition. Microsoft usually moves on quickly from their own marketing. Now that they actually have really good and genuine ads running I hope they have the stick-to-it-iveness to keep going.

I’ve always felt, even when I worked at Microsoft, that the company’s only hope in terms of doing genuine advertising that humanized the company and was effective was to 1) embrace Microsoft’s inner nerdiness and just make it clear that the employees are a bunch of geeks trying to make people’s lives better through software, and 2) make fun of itself. Since Bill embodies the company even though he’s no longer CEO, there’s never been a better way for the company to poke fun at itself. And the nice thing is, for anyone who’s met Bill, he’s incredibly sarcastic and funny. (WRT embracing MSFT’s inner nerdiness… we did an early video for the tone of Vista in 2001 and in it had the line “We’re geeks bearing gifts.” Unfortunate Trojan reference aside ;) , it seemed to capture the spirit of how we felt about our work.)

The only bummer for me in all this is that the Microsoft campaign had to skewer John Hodgman. To me the silver lining in the Apple campaign for Microsoft is that nobody liked the smug indie hipster Mac, and everyone actually liked Hodgman as the PC. I may be biased here as I’m a big fan of Hodgman, but as much as I like to see Apple finally get challenged on their ads (especially when I’m sitting here having just as many problems using a Mac as they claim are in Vista), I would really be bummed not see Hodgman’s amusing bits anymore. Luckily, he’s still on the Daily Show and he has a new book coming out soon. (And if you really can’t get enough, he’s also hysterical on Twitter and on his blog.)

NOTE: The last time I posted an Apple/Microsoft comparison I was immediately deluged by Apple-ologists defending every perceived slight and judgment. So, in advance of that, I like the Mac and I like Vista. Both have some very nice qualities. Both have areas that need improvement. I run both OSes regularly on Apple hardware. And yes, I was a Mac guy until 1997 when I started working at Microsoft, and while there I helped build Windows Vista, so I’m not objective. That said… I am a big fan of quality software and anything that pushes major software companies to improve their stuff sits well with me. And frankly, I don’t understand why there’s so much religion in our industry when ultimately we should want as much competition for our loyalty and money as possible.