Is Jerry Seinfeld really the best pitchman for Microsoft?

It's almost like Apple figured out how to get Microsoft to do their work for them.

If you've seen any of Apple's legendary Mac vs PC ads, they work mostly because Apple found a funny way to characterize PCs as outdated, out of touch, ancient and hopelessly complicated. So what did Microsoft do?

They hired a comic who hasn't had a regular TV job in 10 years to be their spokesman.

Check out the first ad below, and decide if they actually made the right choice.

 

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Comments

[beltwaybandit]

Khan...

Regardless of the numbers, and I agree that Apple has gained share in recent years, the ads referred to were not responsible for the increase. Better products were.

And, a less than 10% computer market share doesn't seem like a lot to be excited about. Especially when you compare it with the competitors' levels.

Apple is a fun company to watch, and innovative as heck.

But...they are a fraction the size of their competitors and likely always will be. They've had 20+ years to build up and this is as far as they've gotten. And there is no true plan for life after Jobs, who is virtually solely responsible for the latest rise of the company.

All the ads in the world won't overcome Jobs' departure.

[Mere]

Considering the demographic Microsoft is probably trying to appeal to, Jerry Seinfeld seems like am appropriate choice.

[Khan of the Wastelands]

Beltwaybandit.... a true measure of the ads working or not would be to show those same number in comparision to the numbers prior to the start of the campaign.

10 years ago about the only people who used Macs were graphic designers, they've made some nice strides.

[beltwaybandit]

Sorry...forgot to attribute the sources for the information in my previous post.

www.macrumors.com will lead you to the Q1 2008 market share figures I reported.

Yahoo Finance page can show you the financial metrics on Apple and Microsoft.

[beltwaybandit]

Did those Apple ads really work? Let's compare Apple and Microsoft.

Market Cap:

Apple = $141.9 billion
Microsoft = $234.2 billion

Revenue:

Apple = $30.8 billion
Microsoft = $60.4 billion

Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation & Amortization:

Apple = $6.3 billion
Microsoft = $26.0 billion

By all measures, Microsoft is at least twice as successful as Apple. By the key measure ... profitability... Microsoft blows Apple away by a factor > 4 times Apple.

Apple's competitors in computer sales are Dell, HP, Acer and Toshiba. Apple ranks fourth in that fight, ahead of Toshiba only slightly and way back of the leaders.

For Q1 2008, here are the market share rankings for these firms:

Dell 31.4%
HP 25.0%
Acer 9.1%
Apple 6.6%
Toshiba 5.5%

By all measures, Apple has a long way to go to be a major player in computer sales and also as a close competitor to Microsoft.

Goes to show...the media's preoccupation with itself in the form of how funny/creative advertisements are has little to do with the overall success of a company.

Jerry Seinfeld's new ads likely will have as much impact on the industry as all the other ads had for Apple.

[Robin 'Roblimo' Miller]

I'd say this is a 100% honest ad for Vista.

I bought a new quad core computer -- heavily discounted -- that came with Vista. Terrible, especially for video editing. Hardly faster than my old P4 when you count the insanely slow (video) file load times.