Well, it just took the right kind of stimulation to get back into the blogging game. And apparently the opportunity to be snarky is exactly what I needed.
Crispin Porter’s first advertisement for the Microsoft consumer business finally came out today after months of delays, and boy does it suck. When CPB took a big chunk of McCann SF’s Microsoft business, I was pretty sure that it spelled trouble for McCann. But my friends there assured me that they were struggling. And yes, they have jumped the shark.
How does it sucketh? Let me count the ways:
- It violates the first cardinal rule of advertising - showcase the product. This looks like an ad for Shoe Circus
- It violates the second cardinal rule of advertising - be original. The Seinfeld riff borrows heavily from Jerry’s Amex commercials, not to mention that the Amex commericals themselves were derived from Comedian.
- It violates the third cardinal rule of advertising- be compelling. In this case, they were going for CPB’s trademark version of compelling- funny. But compelling could also mean dramatic, beautifully executed, or heart-string-tugging. This just isn’t funny. It reeks of too many self-indulgent personalities on the agency side and on the talent side.
