Why Microsoft's Gates/Seinfeld Went Viral and 'I'm a PC' Ads Didn't

Hint: It's in the Comments

Posted by Abbey Klaassen on 10.02.08 @ 11:50 AM

According to Visible Measures, which charts online video viewing trends and has measured the videos associated with Microsoft's $300 million ad campaign, the Seinfeld/Gates ads are squashing the "I'm a PC" ads by a margin of 4.3 million viral video views. Both ads had about equal video placements (about 75 each).

Visible Measures points out that while the Seinfeld/Gates clips came out two weeks earlier than the "I'm a PC" ads, Seinfeld/Gates drew twice as many viewers their first week in market than the PC ads did.

After two weeks in market, Visible Measures says, "Seinfeld/Gates was still collecting more than 700,000 views per day, while the 'I'm a PC' clips had tapered off to less than 50,000 views per day."

Why might this be?

Microsoft sparked a dialogue in the Seinfeld ad that isn't there in PC ads.

"So much viral video is basically word of mouth. And when you build a question into the creative, it gives people something to talk about," said Matt Cutler, VP-marketing and analytics at Visible Measures Corp.

That, in turn, drives things like comment counts and the views-to-comments ratio and, said Mr. Cutler, there's a positive correlation between commenting and viral growth. He also suggested the types of comments were quite different between the two types of ads: The Seinfeld/Gates ads had more adjectives in them, while comments in PC ads had more nouns, suggesting a more emotional response to Seinfeld/Gates ads.

BrandIndex, which measures online buzz, said the Gates/Seinfeld campaign was successful in generating buzz and that Microsoft has carried that momentum into its new campaign. And while buzz scores have flattened out over the past five to six days, when the Gates/Seinfeld ads were replaced by the "I'm a PC" ads, Microsoft's buzz levels are still significantly higher than where they were just before the campaign launched.

OK, so online chatter is important in driving viral views and buzz. But what about real-life conversations? Perhaps spelling trouble for Microsoft in that area, two Ad Age staffers, passing by the "I'm a PC" ads playing in Times Square last week, heard the same comment: "What's a PC?"

12 Comments

By nalts | Doylestown, PA October 2, 2008 02:20:09 pm:

THe Gates/Seinfeld series was brilliant- it was self-deprecating and silly. THe I'm a PC is a classic example of the market leader stooping to react to campaigns of the runner up. It's completely forgettable. The former left me with a feeling that Microsoft is human and willing to laugh at itself. The latter? Look at us... we're everywhere. We already knew that and don't care.

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By ealmendral | North Hollywood, CA October 2, 2008 03:17:31 pm:

The "I'm a PC" spots emphasize the ubiquity of the platform, removing any sense of personality or character. In the end, the product is perceived as generic, something suited for anyone—which is exactly what buyers don't want. As the article indicates, the commercials don't give any sense of what the product is, why it's desirable, and how it may differ from the competition. Instead, the message becomes "use us because everyone else does."

The PC ads attempt to leverage stereotypes of Apple products as appealing only to certain types of buyers: aesthetes, trendsters, creatives. This is a defensive misunderstanding of what the Apple "I'm a Mac" ads succeed at—making their products more accessible to a wider market of users who have been attached to Windows for years for no other reason than its omnipresence.

Despite their cute nature and simplistic format, the "I'm a Mac" commercials manage to highlight differences between the products and advantages of Mac ownership. Apple does a better job of explaining Microsoft's product (the Windows OS in all its variations) than MS does. Even the use of the antiquated term "PC" works for Apple but against MS by implying obsolescence.

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By alphachannel | atlanta, GE October 2, 2008 07:50:01 pm:

I agree with the above comments, yet I believe the "I'm a PC" spots fail in the viral arena because they simply do not spark a conversation (which is marketing manna). These spots are a textbook example of where so-called traditional marketing often comes up short in today's 2.0 world; quite simply the ads talk at us and offer nothing more than a mildly-humorous but passive and comment-unnecessary experience.

The Seinfeld/Gates spots, on the other hand, are off-center and somewhat confusing, prompting many of us to wonder if (like many an Andy Kaufmann performance) there's a joke that's going over our heads. Naturally many of us asked each other "What's going on in those commercials?" Even the decision to pull the ads generated a buzz.

I don't know if this was brilliant marketing or dumb luck; in the end it doesn't really matter. Mission accomplished.

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By Gary | Chicago, IL October 3, 2008 08:46:10 am:

Sparking a conversation is healthy. But sparking a conversation regarding the questioning of what on earth are those ridiculous Gates/Seinfeld ads are actually talking about... well for my money ... I'd rather shut up and not have that type of conversation especially if I were Microsoft.
a bientot!
Gary Crawford
Chicago, Il.

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By Steve | Fredonia, NY October 3, 2008 08:46:53 am:

But what is the viral buzz around the Gates ad? Is it good buzz like "I'm going to stick with Windows",or "what was that about?". I guess MS makes so much money off Windows sales, they don't care if their ads are effective on increasing sales of Windows. Jeez, where have all the smart people gone?

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By tsmuse | Seattle, WA October 3, 2008 09:14:51 am:

Even if the Gates ads are sparking conversation, is it a relevant conversation? I know most of the non-ad people I know are discussing them in the "What the hell was that about?" context. I think the desire to create something that will go viral is overwhelming the need to have a solid message, and the Gates/Seinfeld ads prove that more than anything I've seen to date.

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By chaseweigt | Chicago, IL October 3, 2008 11:11:55 am:

"Viral for the Wrong Reason" should be the title of this article. As mentioned in several other posts, much of the conversation around the Gates/Seinfeld spot was geared towards it being such a blunder - not conversations relating to what a great spot it was. Viral growth based on negative criticism is far from the goals of successful advertising.

To another point, it's questionable as to how valid the adjective vs. noun study is. In this case, it's hard to believe the spot with the more adjectives really reflects the ad with more emotional response. The "I'm a PC" spot tied directly to emotions of the viewer and allowed them to feel passionate, once again, about a PC. I think the "I'm a PC" spot revived the credibility of CP+B after the Gates/Seinfeld misstep. [Though, this is just one opinion based on personal preference and observations of a small market segment of peers.]

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By ADMAVEN | Chicago, IL October 3, 2008 01:08:00 pm:

This "positive spin" by Matt Cutler is a nice way of saying, "When you spend $300M on a terrible campaign you inspire people to make fun of it".

I would LOVE to see this adjective analysis - I wonder what the top used words to describe the video are.

I posted a great little bit by Penny-Arcade on my blog that pretty much sums up where this one went:

http://admaven.blogspot.com/2008/09/gates-seinfeld-and-penny-arcade.html

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By Kevin | New York, NY October 3, 2008 01:13:24 pm:

I guess people (including AdAge ?) think viral marketing is supposed to carry you all the way down the marketing funnel.

It isn't.

So far this campaign is working exactly as planned.

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By miczi | Tel Aviv October 4, 2008 11:27:48 am:

9 comments on an adage artical ? I think microsoft won.
miczi Tel-Aviv, Israel.

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By YuriyBoykiv | Cliffside Park, NJ October 6, 2008 12:05:40 am:

I believe the "I am a PC" commercial is very strong and serves the purpose. First and foremost it speaks to every human being, regardless of its origin or profession. It speaks with a simple language emphasizing a basic, but very powerful advantage that MS has: it's current users. Secondly, it reveals that having a PC is not going to make you less succesfull or happy. MS makes a point of leveraging its weight and does it with a sense of emotional appeal. Good move, no idea why they had to wait that long to make it.

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By peterjohns | Chicago, IL January 25, 2009 02:09:41 am:

If one person could truly determine the reason for an article going viral, the business paradigm of this country would change as we know it, over night. Think about it; we're in the information age. Viral articles are the new Gold. "Where can I find a viral article? How many articles have gone viral?" These are questions that all the top business minds are going to be asking themselves.

My name is Peter Johns, I write for Helium.com and recently (on Dec 14, 2008) I wrote an article and this article went viral for some reason. Over 600,000 people viewed it in just 24 hours. An article! Not a porn pic or a severed head video, just an ARTICLE! And it's driving me crazy.

Any person with business sense can understand why. In fact, they would take this article apart and try to understand why it churned such an interest.

Any business program at any of the top Universities in the country would take a gem like this and actually build a class around it. The first thing any business student would do - if given the assignment to write a "viral" article - would be to find one that's already gone viral.

So that's my two cents on articles going viral. Thanks for letting me vent my obsession.

Cheers!

Peter

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