Microsoft Enlists Seinfeld in $300 Million Bid to Fix Windows' Image

SEATTLE - Microsoft is paying Jerry Seinfeld a reported $10 million to star alongside Bill Gates in a $300 million advertising campaign — a bid to rescue Windows from Apple's smug "I'm a Mac" ads and the troubled reputation of Windows Vista.

The campaign, created by the hot boutique agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, begins airing Sept. 4. Early spots are said to feature Seinfeld and Gates in everyday settings rather than product pitches — "an ice-breaker," in one executive's phrase.

The ads are Microsoft's most aggressive response yet to Apple's long-running "Get a Mac" campaign, which portrays the PC as a hapless, virus-prone suit and has become a cultural touchstone while Apple's market share climbs.

Vista, released to consumers in early 2007, sold hundreds of millions of copies but became a byword for incompatibility and bloat. An internal Microsoft ad campaign this summer, "The Mojave Experiment," showed skeptics praising the system once told it was new.

"This is not about one ad campaign," Microsoft's marketing chief said. "It's about reclaiming the story of what a billion Windows users actually experience."

Seinfeld's fee has already raised eyebrows — and expectations. The comedian's sitcom famously featured a Macintosh on his apartment desk.

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Associated Press writers contributed to this report.

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