Michael Jackson Beats It

Michael Jackson
August 29, 1958 - June 26, 2009

The King of Pop is gone.

Yes, it's been years since he last had a real hit.
Yes, he's never really been the same Michael Jackson who broke into the big-time with the brilliant videos for Thriller and Beat It and so on.
Yes, he was severely damaged by the child molestation charges against him.
Yes, he often seemed more caricature rather than singer.
Yes, he was probably the weirdest superstar of our time, or anyone's time, for that matter.

But he will still be missed. Not because we actually still want to hear more from him in song, but more because "Ben", "Thriller", "The Girl is Mine", "Bad" and many others really don't work if it's someone else singing them. He owned them and, for a while, he owned Pop music.

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However, it's not really totally implausible that he's just hiding out somewhere in the Nevada desert or wherever ala Howard Hughes. Or Elvis.

I'm a PC (another new set of commercials from Microsoft)

What's with Microsoft lately?

Here's a NEW set of commercials barely two weeks after the premiere of the Jerry Seinfeld - Bill Gates fiasco. (Which you can read and watch here and here.)

These are better than the previous set, I guess, in that they're more human and therefore more believable.

But wait.

What's the real message here? Oh yeah. "Normal people like you and me use PCs, not Macs."

Uh, dude, we knew that already. Most of the human race uses Microsoft. So what's the big deal about that? (I don't know.)

I also disagree with the strategy of defining or creating a campaign as a response to a competitor's campaign. You're throwing the ball in Apple's court, Microsoft.

Oh and by the way, I think this would've been cute and effective if you had done this when the original Mac vs PC ads aired --- three years ago.

(And somewhere in Richmond, you have some marketing guy muttering: "Oh crap -- back to the drawing board!")

Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates' horrible new Microsoft commercial

Jerry Seinfeld is back in a commercial that, in true Seinfeldian fashion, is actually about nothing.

Come on: The Future... Delicious??? Eh?

This is another one of those Crispin Porter Bogusky creations so it's actually working according to plan: I'm talking about it.

Never mind that I'm talking about how BAD it actually is.

And never mind that I'm talking about the creator of the ad and NOT the product / brand either.

This is not the first time I've said something about them, incidentally. (Look here.)

Something's gone wrong somewhere, boys. Again. Shouldn't you guys be rethinking this whole idea of "publicity is good, no matter what kind of publicity"?