Cisco’s Human Network and Microsoft’s Commercials about Nothing

It’s easy to hit Microsoft for its ad campaigns; between the misleading nature of the “Mojave Experiment,” followed by the theatre of the absurd campaign starring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld but which actually failed to explain absolutely anything about anything Microsoft does, and finally it’s “I’m a PC” campaign which can be seen as a reaction to the Apple campaign – a reaction years too late, and which can be easily negated by Apple asking John Hodgman to appear in jeans, a scuba suit, and an evening gown.  He’ll do it, too.

When ads from counter-culture surrealist animator Bill Plympton make more sense than your multimillion dollar ad campaign, which amounted to a celebrity endorsement of nothing, you’re doing something wrong.

But Microsoft isn’t the only offender. 

Cisco is launching “The Human Network Effect,” which demonstrates how Web 2.0 tools shape the way consumers live today.  Of course, I’m a consumer and I already know how Web 2.0 already affects me.

This is a continuation of the “Welcome to the Human Network” campaign where, among other things, humanitarian aid workers use a Cisco teleconferencing setup to communicate with parents back home from a village which, presumably, needs humanitarian aid.  That’s some good prioritizing there.  (To be fair, the advertisement also showed that Cisco has managed to somehow solve the speed-of-light latency problem from a satellite truck. That’s impressive.)

It makes me long for the advertising genius of “Philip Fill,” the marketing guru alter-ego of Kermit the Frog, in Muppets Take Manhattan, who comes up with the idea: “Ocean Breeze Soap Will Get You Clean.”