The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft has signed on comedian Jerry Seinfeld as lead pitchman for Microsoft Vista. Microsoft has recently fired up a substantial new public relations campaign—including the now infamous Mojave Experiment—as the company tries to promote the benefits of Windows Vista to customers who have put off upgrading…or who have deliberately downgraded to Windows XP.
Enlisting Jerry Seinfeld would also help Microsoft hit back at Apple’s well-known “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” advertisements featuring comedian John Hodgman as the rather frumpy personification of a Windows PC.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Seinfeld will appear in Vista advertisements alongside Bill Gates, and be one of a handful of celebrities endorsing Windows Vista. The nature of the new ad campaign is being kept a close secret, but will apparently be built around a slogan like “Windows, not Walls” (apparently a reference to the closed ecosystem of Apple hardware). Seinfeld will apparently be paid $10 million for the work; the campaign was created by Miami’s Crispin, Porter + Bogusky agency and starts running September 4.
Seinfeld previously appeared in commercials for Hewlett-Packard, tied into promotions for his film Bee Movie. However, in his signature 1990’s self-titled sitcom, his character famously owned a succession of Macintosh computers.
