Microsoft evidently is gearing up for a 300 million dollar ad campaign to shore up Vista. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that part of this effort will include giving Jerry Seinfeld 10 million dollars to help in the campaign.
All I’ve got to say is ugh.
Is this really the best way to spend money in today’s market? Not to me. We don’t need to give actors millions of dollars or TV networks more cash. Sorry. That’s yesterday’s world.
I’ll go back to some ideas I’ve talked about before that I think would help boost Vista’s image and do it more effectively.
Here, in no specific order, are some variants on how to market Vista better and still fit under a $300,000,000 budget:
1. 100,000 Tablet PC Get one, Give one Giveaway. Yes, give away 100,000 Tablet PCs at roughly $2,000 a piece, totalling about $200,000,000 over a ten week period. That’s effectively one Tablet PC every minute for 70 days. How do you give that many Tablet PCs away? Leverage the web and the gift of kindness. Here’s how it works: A person has to write a blog post or submit an essay on who they would give a Tablet PC to and why. It can be a person or organization. Your post/essay is then added to an aggregator that people can read and vote up/down on. Every two minutes a winner from this list is gifted a Tablet PC and whoever created the post is given one too. You can fill in the details.
2. 100,000 Tablet PC Live Search Giveaway. Like giveaway #1, give away 1 Tablet PC every minute over a 70 day period. To win, you have to use Live Search and somewhere on the page will be a winning link that you click on to accept the prize.
3. 100,000 Student Giveaway. In 4 weeks give away 25,000 Tablet PCs a week. How to do it? Any student adds a Facebook application that includes a chat Window in which a message pops up in which if you respond to and you win (or something similar).
4. Ultimate Silverlight Giveaway. Visit a page with a Silverlight app on it and win a Tablet PC or comparable by drawing something in the app. Drawings are voted up or down.
5. ???? Enter your own 300 million dollar giveaway here.
Of course, I know all of this is too late. But, you know, I hope it’s not too late for Jerry Seinfeld to do something nice with his money. It doesn’t seem right. Sorry, Jerry.