Fast Company has an intriguing piece about Microsoft's hiring of the iconoclastic (aren't they all?) ad agency Crispin, led by Alex Bogusky, which has been given only the very minor task of revamping Microsoft's public image, with campaigns to begin from July.
Yes, we know, Microsoft just doesn't get that "oh, yeah, wow" reaction from the average person in the street. More like "Dad, stop dancing! You look gross!" (No need to link to those videos. We've seen them.)
It's a long, absorbing article, though it also shows that Mad Men can be easily updated simply by replacing those sharp suits with some chinos and T-shirts, and the slicked-back hair with gel, and the cigarettes with, I dunno, who's this charlie guy they all ask for?
But let's see how they're approaching the challenge.
The two understand just how delicate the Microsoft project will be. "To try to be cool is to not be cool," [co-executive creative director Andrew] Keller pronounces. "To chase cool, you're chasing something that already exists, which means you're always going to be on the wrong side of it, you'll always be following."
In April 2007, long before the Microsoft account came Crispin's way, Bogusky had told me that "Crispin sort of exists because of the revolution in desktop publishing that the Mac brought about. You could be a small shop and compete against Madison Avenue for the first time because all the tools were in your computer." That may explain why Keller and Reilly are today using their team as an early focus group for learning how to persuade Mac lovers to embrace Windows. "You've got a lot of passionate Mac people in here, and they've got to get their head around this thing -- why Windows is genius," says Keller.
Ah, ok. But in an exchange that is pure Mad Men,
When I ask if they're making their team get rid of their iPods and PowerBooks, Reilly responds, "It's not a matter of forcing people. It's getting them to want to use it. If you can't, you're not going to do great advertising."
And now let's contrast Apple's approach...
One thousand miles away from Boulder, in a biometrically sealed, Frank Gehry -- designed compound outside Los Angeles, sits TBWA\Chiat\Day's Media Arts Lab. It is in this vaultlike building -- created at the behest of Steve Jobs -- that the "Mac vs. PC" spots are conceived. Chiat\Day has been making Apple's ads for nearly 25 years -- going back to its iconic "1984" spot -- and the lab's isolation ensures not only that the creatives do their best work but also that nothing leaks out. "I hear they have some kind of eyeball scanner," says one Chiat\Day art director I spoke with who, despite having worked at the agency for five years, has never set foot inside the place.
Even allowing for hyperbole, it's believable that he might not have seen inside. And now, back to Crispin:
The folks at Crispin like to give the impression that the Microsoft assignment is less about the money than about the thrill. "I think we've learned," says Steinhour, "that when you take on these kinds of odd relationships with big companies that need a kick start, the motivation to overcome those suspicions is a lot of the fun." But Crispin knows better than anyone that "fun" isn't the metric for its clients. Noting that Burger King has had 16 straight quarters of growth since Crispin took on the account, Hicks says, "Your work is only as good as the performance of the brand and the business."
Ah, sure, it's the Mad Men metric. But there are some hints about how they're thinking for these campaigns: which is to emphasise, in the manner of a cartoonist, just what Microsoft already is and does, and emphasise those - blow them up, make them huge, overwhelm us with them.
Bogusky explains that with previous clients, instead of hiding qualities that may seem negative -- such as Mini's tiny proportions or Burger King's fat content -- Crispin exploits them. "It's part of your job as a marketer to find the truths in a company, and you let them shine through in whatever weird way it might be," he says.
Naturally, that risks pissing someone off. "I think really good brands have to have something of a thick skin these days," Bogusky says. Last year for Coke Zero, the Crispin team designed a campaign in which one division of Coke sues another for "taste infringement." Bogusky says Coca-Cola's ability to be self-effacing was a disarming way to make the brand likable. "I think it works so well for Coke because it's the most corporate of corporate," he says.
All I'd say is that the problem Microsoft faces isn't about what it is doing, but what it's perceived not to be doing: it's not leading in search, it's not moving fast enough to a web-enabled world, it's not flexible where it needs to be flexible.
Still, let's revisit the Mad Mens' work. Any favourite advertising campaigns you've seen ?
