Seinfeld Out of Vista Ads; So Where’s the News?

Published: Sep 18, 2008
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
1 minute read
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Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported last evening that people he trusts at Microsoft now confirm Jerry Seinfeld’s literally out of the picture in the company’s $300 million Vista television campaign, which was worse than a train wreck.

So it’s three and out: Three commercials, three whiffs. Why are we not surprised? Who came up with the totally inane story lines that had absolutely nothing to do with anything? (Actually, the Miami-based ad firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky is the culprit.) Who wrote those idiotic scripts? (Same guys.) Who “directed” smirking Bill Gates, who couldn’t act his way out of a whitebox? (Well, they hired somebody to do that dirty work.)

Arrington blogs that “Microsoft won’t confirm Seinfeld’s rumored $10 million fee one way or the other. And they say he may be back later in the campaign. But starting today [Sept. 18] the ads go on, without Seinfeld.”

Everybody affiliated with that project should go now to their rooms and take a timeout in the corner for like four years. Either that or run up to Cape Canaveral and hitch a ride on a one-way satellite launch.

Chris Preimesberger

Chris J. Preimesberger is Editor Emeritus of eWEEK. In his 16 years and more than 5,000 articles at eWEEK, he distinguished himself in reporting and analysis of the business use of new-gen IT in a variety of sectors, including cloud computing, data center systems, storage, edge systems, security and others. In February 2017 and September 2018, Chris was named among the 250 most influential business journalists in the world (https://richtopia.com/inspirational-people/top-250-business-journalists/) by Richtopia, a UK research firm that used analytics to compile the ranking. He has won several national and regional awards for his work, including a 2011 Folio Award for a profile (https://www.eweek.com/cloud/marc-benioff-trend-seer-and-business-socialist/) of Salesforce founder/CEO Marc Benioff--the only time he has entered the competition. Previously, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. He has been a stringer for the Associated Press since 1983 and resides in Silicon Valley.

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