Updated!
Hello, Boing Boing readers! (And thanks, Cory!) I’ve added a whole whack of new videos to this entry including John Cleese’s 1980s ads for Compaq, Tom Baker’s ads for Prime Computer, plus celebrity ads for Intel Centrino, Apple, Nintendo DS and more!
What’s Up with That?
By now, you’ve probably heard that Microsoft latest move to counter the incredibly popular “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” ads was to hire Jerry Seinfeld as their new pitchman. The new campaign, which is rumored to be based on the slogan “Windows, Not Walls”, is expected to cost US$300 million — $10 million of which is earmarked for Seinfeld — is expected to debut on September 4th. As Jerry would say in his own stand-up routines: “What’s up with that?”
Yes, because if there’s one surefire way to convince everyone Vista is cool, cutting edge and not liable to get frazzled by life’s minor complications, it’s hiring a 1990s sitcom star and professional kvetcher! Who, um, very visibly owned a series of Macs on his show. This is Microsoft’s worst promotional concept since, well, since its last Vista campaign, the Mojave Experiment, which decisively proved that people hate Vista but will use it if they are tricked into thinking it’s something else, like a stable, functional tool. Here’s how Madison Avenue is responding:
“They are not seen as cool,” says Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a New York branding firm. “Apple is cool. Can anyone even recall a Microsoft ad? No.”
And they won’t be able to remember this one either, because using Seinfeld humor in ads was already considered tired three years ago.
Microsoft’s hiring of a celebrity who peaked back in the 1990s is a perfect metaphor for a two of their biggest problems:
- They’re hamstrung by the need to maintain backward compatibility with 1990s applications (Raymond Chen’s blog has the best stories about these issues).
- They’re still using their 1990s approach to marketing: throwing a lot of money around.
I expect that Microsoft’s ads will be the exact opposite of Apple’s: instead of two unknown (at least prior to the ads) guys against a plain white background, they’ll feature a celebrity against a glitzy background. Also unlike Apple’s ads, I suspect theirs won’t be all that effective.
To borrow another Seinfeld line: “Good luck with all that.”
Seinfeld in One of the Old “Think Different” Ads
Mark Evans found this old Apple “Think Different” ad — one of those “Here’s to the crazy ones” ads with Richard Dreyfuss doing the voice-over — that features, of all people, a young Jerry Seinfeld.
Seinfeld in an HP Ad
In this HP ad, Seinfeld promotes not just one, but two flops: Windows Vista and Bee Movie:
A Brief History of Celebrity Computer Endorsements
Microsoft’s hire of Seinfeld led me to search for computer and videogame system ads featuring celebrities. Here’s what I found:
Commodore: William Shatner
In the original Star Trek series, Shatner’s character Captain James T. Kirk actually destroyed a number of computers just by talking to them. That’s why I always thought Shatner was an odd choice as Commodore’s pitchman. In the ad below, he’s promoting the Vic-20:
Commodore Amiga: Tommy Lasorda, the Pointer Sisters, NASA Astronauts and Thomas “Tip” O’Neil
This is probably the most celebrity-laden ad I’ve ever seen for a computer, the woefully under-appreciated Commodore Amiga:
Bill Cosby: Texas Instruments TI 99/4
Here’s Bill Cosby, who was the spokesperson for Texas Instrument’s incredibly lame TI 99/4:
George Plimpton: Mattel Intellivision
Bak in the early 1980s, we had the first console war: the Atari VCS (later renamed the Atari 2600) versus Mattel Intellivision. Atari had an unknown — a nerdy blond kid with big glasses — as their spokesperson. Mattel went with a celebrity: George Plimpton.
While the Intellivision’s better graphics and sound made it a much better console for sports games, Atari had the far better gameplay, especially for arcade games. Star Strike, which Plimpton hawks in the video below, was far less fun than Asteroids, even if it featured “the total destruction of a planet”:
Finally, here’s an Plimpton ad that gets downright creepy at the end. It features Henry Thomas (he played “Elliott” in E. T. and was a big star at the time), who’s about to make the classic “Oh, let’s get in the playground candyman’s van…he seems legit!” mistake…
Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston: Windows 95 Training
Although this isn’t an ad but a training video, it’s still got considerable late-’90s star power in the form of Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston from Friends. This features the painful line: “Taskbar? Is that like a Snickers bar?”
Here’s part one:
and here’s part two:
Hewlett-Packard’s Ads
And finally, celebrity ads for half-decent computers (I’ve generally had good experiences with HP machines, and not just the printers).
Here’s Mark Cuban (good friend of my former employer, Tucows):
Vera Wang also did an ad:
Tennis star Serena Williams:
Pop star Gwen Stefani, who should get bonus points for the use of the word “mash-up”:
and finally, Pharrell:
John Cleese: Compaq
Back in the early 1980s, Compaq was synonymous with “portable computer”. I remember being stunned that you could actually carry a computer around! I also remember being stunned that John Cleese was doing ads for them.
Here’s Cleese asking the most important question about portable computers: “Does it have a handle?”
“We don’t need a portable. We have Bruno”:
This one’s an ad for the Compaq III that was only shown in the U.K.:
This one targets “that trendy computer” — the original Macintosh. Guess which company is still around?
In which he compares the Portable II to a fish:
Forget about our earlier commercials about portable computers, we make desktops now!
In case you’re not sure how to spell “Compaq”:
“How could a computer be made from three hundred and eighty six chips and 32 bits from a bus?”
The “Trust the well known name” ad is very Pythonesque:
Here’s one for the Compaq DeskPro: “70 megabytes. 8 mega-hertz. Two hundred and eighty-six chips. Dual-mode monitor.”
Here’s another one where he uses the “three hundred and eighty six chips and 32 bits of a bus” line:
“The decision stank”:
“I need a vaction!”
“Three cheers for it!”
Again with “three hundred and eighty six chips and 32 bits of a bus” gag:
He wants 1 million pounds in ransom from IBM:
This one plays on the old adage “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”:
In this one, he’s talking about the new Compaq plant in Glasgow:
And finally, an internal promo video for Compaq UK’s dealers:
Intel Centrino: John Cleese, Tony Hawk and Seal
It could be the opening line to a joke: “John Cleese, Tony Hawk and Seal walk into a commercial…”
Prime Computer: Tom “Doctor Who” Baker
Tom Baker played one of my favorite incarnations of Doctor Who; he also shilled for Prime Computer. Here he is with Lalla Ward, who played “Romana” on Doctor Who:
Apple
Here’s an old one for the Lisa (the predecessor to the Mac) featuring Kevin Costner:
Apple’s had a few celebrities in recent ads. Here’s an “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” one with Gisele Bundchen:
This one features Judy Greer as the cute-but-unstable yoga instructor:
I think HAL 9000 is enough of a celebrity to count, don’t you?
Nintendo DS
Why is Captain Picard Starfleet’s greatest strategist? Because of Nintendo brain training! Here’s Patrick Stewart and Julie Walters with a DS:
Here’s Nicole Kidman keeping her brain sharp:
Australian comedian Hamish Blake:
Microsoft UK: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant (The Office, the UK Version)
Here’s a four-parter featuring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant in their The Office characters starring in a Microsoft UK training video titled The Office Values:
IBM: Avery Brooks
We’ve had Kirk and Picard…why not Sisko? Here’s Avery Brooks’ ads for IBM. The “Where are the Flying Cars?” ad struck a chord with a number of friends:
Here’s another one, “Epiphany”:
And here’s one on Linux:
Atari “XL” Series Computers
In those “pre-internet” days, there were considerably fewer uses for computers. As a result, there semmed to be many more ads for the computer as an educational tool than today. Here’s Alan Alda talking about how his Atari XL computer is teaching him Italian:
Here’s one demonstrating Typing Attack, a videogame that teaches touch typing. There were a number of apps like that back then:
Here’s an ad featuring “Atari Writer”, Atari’s word processing package. You have to keep in mind that at this point in time, many people still used typewriters:
IBM: The Cast of M*A*S*H
Alan Alda didn’t just do ads for Atari, he also appeared in an IBM commercial, and so did some of his castmates from M*A*S*H. The video below features two ads: Jamie Farr is in the ad for the PS/2 series of computers, and Alan Alda, Harry Morgan and Gary Burghoff are in the ad for the AS/400 series.
