I’m a PC, and I Write Blog Entries
mattmaroon.com
mattmaroon.com
Here's how it worked from a technical perspective ten, or so, years ago, when I worked in the industry:
Ads come in automatically via satellite twice per day, in big batches of 20-40 spots. They are automatically recorded onto a single tape (a computer was put online for this a few weeks before I left the station--it was a different ad distribution company, I believe, and so only a few ads were running off of this system, so I'm not deeply familiar with it, but it was fully automated, with no human intervention required to go from ad network to air). The single tape was then processed by a tape operator (me) onto individual tapes, and labeled with a barcode, for use in the master control automated tape loader. Turnaround time was usually an hour or two from the usual spot feed, and the spots were usually airing by the next day.
When an ad had a mistake, a special feed would be scheduled...sometimes within hours of the mistake being found and the ad producer being notified. A new version of the ad could definitely be online the same day. With the automated computer system, I suspect it could be replaced in minutes.
However, spot production is a somewhat different story. Depending on the size of the production, it could take weeks to schedule all of the pieces to fall into place. That said, with enough money and enough muscle (which Microsoft has in spades), a large scale production could be done in days or even hours.
To put things further into perspective, the station I worked for (WB 39 in Houston) also had a production division, and would occasionally make spots practically in real-time for local advertisers to tie into ongoing events like Rockets games. Adding running commentary of the game to spots, by the usual spokesperson for the company (like Mattress Mac), was a reasonably common practice. If Microsoft really wanted to change directions fast, they could do it. It'd cost them two or three times as much (if they were a normal customer...though their agency may have eaten some of the cost just to keep MS happy through these trying times and the perceived disaster that is the spots they'd already produced), and the agency would have to re-schedule other customers productions (or pay lots of overtime), but it could definitely be done.
I'm pretty sure you can. Most advertising agencies present multiple options to their clients and variations thereon, so Microsoft likely had half a dozen half-fleshed-out ideas they could have followed in addition to the Seinfeld one. And, yes, producing an ad could take a long time, but it could also take a very short time, depending on what is needed and how much money you are willing to throw at it. Every day, news networks come up with hours of professionally produced graphics, interviews, and reports, with lead times varying from a few days to a matter of minutes.
Matt, I think you may be onto something there. Things in front of us always seem bigger than they really are, but when they went from M$10 on Jerry Seinfeld to directly responding to the "I'm a PC" commercials, this went from being another M$300 ad spend to a very high stakes gamble.
When they were doing the Seinfeld thing, it could have been a defensive move. They solidify their support with their core market, and Apple's ads solidify their support with Apple's core market. It stops and further switching, but creates a stable stalemate with Microsoft maintaining huge market share and continuing to farm its customers for upgrade revenue.
But directly responding to the Apple ads changes things. Now it's a kind of winner-take-all strategy. If they succeed, they could reverse the trend and win customers and mind share back. But if they fail, they accelerate the defection and actually get their own customers talking about Apple's advertising!
If Microsoft spends any serious money on this "I'm a PC" series, I don't see this ending in a stable stalemate. One or the other is going to win out. It "I'm a PC" flops, Microsoft looks very, very bad and validates Apple's advertising. Of course, if it succeeds it could undermine everything Apple has worked on and claw back their gains.
So... I would have to say that before canning Jerry this was not going to be a B-School case study. But now that the #1 player with 90+% of the market is breaking all the rules by referencing a competitor's advertising...
Yeah, I see this as a B-School case study no matter how it plays out.
Even more than fixing Vista's problems, Microsoft needs to get back mindshare & brand that it has been losing to "cooler" competitors like Apple & Google. Microsoft wants to be talked about. And that takes a lot more guts than saying "Vista rocks". To their credit, they recognize that.
Microsoft kept dismissing people switching to Linux and OS X as not being in their target audience. But I think PG said it best in http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html
"Who cares if hackers like Apple again? How big is the hacker market, after all?
Quite small, but important out of proportion to its size. When it comes to computers, what hackers are doing now, everyone will be doing in ten years."
Unfortunately I didn't read that essay back in 2005.
And, as Arrington said in a post today-- the "I'm a PC" ads made the Mac ads seem less funny and more arrogant. It had a great, "Fuck you, I'm not lame just because I don't use a Mac" quality and I think will nudge people to be proud of using a PC.
FWIW, I use a PC and I generally feel pretty content about it. I paid $400 for a great box on Craigslist. I can play games from time to time. I don't get viruses. My computer doesn't crash/freeze. I've watched my Mac buddies recently have a LOT more frequent hardware issues than I do (tho Apple is admittedly great at dealing with it when it happens).
My computer has no white plastic, no rounded corners, aliased fonts and I love it. :-)
As for your saying that this is good because it can't be understood: I'm going to call BS. Being deliberately vague never works for anybody. The ads WERE understandable (hey, guys, Bill Gates is pretty cool, and we're not a faceless empire!), so your point doesn't quite work, but things that you can't understand are either things you can LEARN to understand or they're poorly done. Simple as that.
Which is not to say that I do (or anyone should) simply dismiss his arguments because of that. He is a fanboy, in fact, he's the closest thing to a leader they have. If he told his readers to march on Washington, there'd be a million Priuses (or is it Prii?) with Apple bumper stickers clogging the expressways in every state. I'm truly impressed that he's made such a career out of it, but if you don't think that the fact that most of his income is derived from blogging about how great Apple is taints his views, you're simply and obviously wrong.
Here's a thought experiment. Suppose you were Microsoft, and you made a series of ads, planning the first two and possibly a third to be with Jerry Seinfeld (pending reception of the first two) and the rest with lesser celebrities or none at all. Would you not still hype them up for a couple months beforehand? I mean, you just hired possibly the biggest celebrity in TV history to do your TV ads. You wouldn't be issuing press releases, even if it were just for the first two weeks of a year-long campaign? I would.
So then, suppose they get a highly mixed reception and you continue on with your original plan of switching to the other ones. People start asking you why. What do you tell them?
They answered through their PR department because that's who questions to Microsoft (or any large corporation) go to. The PR department. That's the point of a PR department, to be the liaison between the company and the press.
CPB group's job is not to talk to reporters on Microsoft's behalf, and it would be unusual if they were the ones issuing press releases and statements on Microsoft's behalf.
I'm not digging your style, I must say. Comparing my point to Bill O'Reilly's style is pretty distorted. My point - that if a lot of smart people are also big Apple people, that Apple may actually be making the best products - is hardly irrational. I don't know why you've got a problem against Apple, or why you like tinting every lens in favor of Microsoft, but it's not pleasant and most of your posts have things in them that seem sneering towards things I genuinely like. Apparently your big web site is also a blog that got famous for being offensive, so that's no big surprise, but at the same time you'll forgive me from finding it a bit immature of you.
You think Microsoft only had three ads planned? You think they dropped only a single ad? Citation? And if they DID overadvertise Seinfeld for only a few ads, I'd say that was a bad move on Microsoft's part.
I don't have any particular love for Microsoft or loathing for Apple. I really don't care. I don't like the fanboy mindset that's pervaded the tech media, where Apple can do no wrong and Microsoft no right. I see Apple fans routinely criticize Microsoft for the DRM in Vista (which affects the 8 people who have a Vista PC with BluRay hooked up to an HDTV but not through an HDMI connection that supports HDCP) but not Apple (who has done more to promote and benefit from DRM than anyone by a factor of 1,000) and I call bullshit on it. If that's offensive or immature, then I'm OK with that.
My blog is neither famous nor big. I don't make any money at all from promoting Microsoft. Gruber, on the other hand, makes money from being an Apple fanatic. And of course, that doesn't mean that he can't form a coherent argument, but it does mean that you need to take whatever he says about Microsoft with a grain of salt.
I do think Microsoft dropped at most 1 Seinfeld ad. My citation would be Microsoft's and Crispin Porter + Bogusky's statements to the press. Not to mention the fact that he took Microsoft's response to the press coming through their PR agency (whose main job it is to respond to press on their behalf) to be any sort of proof of anything.
Where's your citations, other than baseless illogical heresay on fanboy blogs?
You're allowed to call bullshit on Apple fans who act like hypocrites. Apple fans who attack DRM without calling attention to iTunes are being stupid. At the same time, ignoring the fact that Apple's got more DRM-free music than any other store, last I checked, is ignoring the fact that Apple is TRYING to allow for open systems insofar as it doesn't ruin a business deal. But DRM isn't the issue here, and I don't see why that's being brought up.
Your initial stance against Gruber's reaction was a sneering one, though. I mean, those Seinfeld ads really didn't push much for Vista. They were well-made shots, but you've been saying repeatedly that they're possibly going to revolutionize advertising and make history. I think that's illogical just as you seem to think disliking those ads were illogical.
When I read blogs, I take their arguments at face value. If I'm reading an argument from Apple itself, if that argument makes sense then I'll agree with it until other proof comes up. Similarly, if somebody who's usually big on Apple turns around and starts praising Linux or Windows, I don't think they're more credible because it's such a big change. Unless their reasoning is good, I'll still call BS.
I didn't see the part in their statement where they said they had only dropped a single ad. I don't recall seeing that anywhere. If you've got a link to that, or even the site you found it on, then tell me and I'll give it a look. But I still hold that their having only two ads seems pretty lackluster and looks like they're panicking, even though I acknowledge the fact that there might be more reasoning behind them. I think that the terrible phase two that we're seeing continues that trend.
What would you like me to cite? Anything you think I said that isn't rationally thought-out I'll try to clarify. I will point out, though, that your responding to my accusations by using yet more weasel words really doesn't make you seem particularly more believable.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/its-over-for-seinfeld-b...
Gizmodo says that CP+B confirms there was one produced that hasn't aired, but may later, along with others yet to be produced:
http://gizmodo.com/5051682/microsoft-ads-featuring-bill-gate...
There you go. Got anything to the contrary that isn't baseless hearsay like "Microsoft's questions from the press were replied to by their public relations agency, ergo they are panicking"?
Surely you must admit now that Gruber's logic there was deeply flawed.
And yeah. Flawed logic following those two stories. I still think Microsoft's campaign is questionable at best, but at least it looks like they're still proceeding as per plan.
What will be better is how Apple will respond to the ads.
"[...] Vista and PowerPoint and Microsoft's other core non-game products are largely devoid of personality and are optimized to be sold to organizations that prefer it that way. Microsoft can change this if they want to, but until they do, running ads pretending to be something other than that is a waste of money."
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/09/what-adverti...
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And what is that "CNN article" based on? Random bloggers of course! Read its second sentence:
"Bloggers and online media have suggested that the Redmond, Washington-based company yanked the Seinfeld ads after they were poorly received"
Also, where in that article did "Microsoft admit the ads were a dud"?
"The notion that we're doing some quick thing to cancel (the Seinfeld ads) is actually preposterous," Mathews [MSFT VP] said. "Today was always the day. ... Media buying is something you have to do months in advance."
However, this seems to back up the thrust of my point: http://valleywag.com/5051860/microsoft-ad-agency-confirms-ne...
HAHAHA