Microsoft, Seinfeld and looking good

Microsoft has pulled its quirky but completely ineffective ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates -- a comic who no longer has a TV show and an executive who no longer works for the company.

But instead of just admitting it was a bad campaign and a waste of money ($10 million), MS PR folk are saying they are going to phase two of the campaign, and that the plan was always to drop Jerry.

You know, you're a huge company, an industry founder and leader. You do computers, not ads -- and you make mistakes at both. This was a big one, but it happens. Don't spin -- or, more accurately, lie -- to try and polish this turd.

I actually liked seeing the more human side of Gates, and his move to focus on his philanthropy takes some of the ego, aloofness and nerdiness -- and the "we know better, just use our stuff" aura -- away and makes him more of a real person in my eyes -- something someone should have done a long time ago.

And, echoing the thoughts of The Denver Egotist, pretty amazing the power that feedback has to influence -- and kill -- a campaign today.