• Adweek , Friday, September 5, 2008 10:16 AM

The first Microsoft spot featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates broke on the opening-night NFL broadcast Thursday. The 90-second clip employs quick-cut editing and kind of tells the story of the odd couple's day at discount emporium Shoe Circus in the mall, where Gates buys a snappy leather number called "The Conquistador."

As they exit, Seinfeld asks if Microsoft is working on something to make computers "moist and chewy like cake, so we can eat 'em while we're working." Seinfeld tells Gates to adjust his underwear if the answer is yes, and the software mogul does so with a Chaplinesque move, much to the comic's delight. The commercial closes with the words "The future. Delicious."

Immediate reaction on the web was almost as intense as the run-up to the clip's debut -- and generally just as negative. Adweek ad critic Barbara Lippert, writing a week before the effort broke, was none too enamored of Microsoft employing Seinfeld as a pitchman. She called the pick "preposterously unhip."

Read the whole story at Adweek »