Jerry Judge: why new agency McCann has a tough task on its hands with Microsoft creative

I watched a bit too much old fashioned TV this weekend. My new fitness drive required some heavy recovery time. Anyway, I saw a lot of Microsoft advertising. Wow, it’s so bad. Self-centered. Wordy. Complicated. Dense. No notion that it is the beginning of a process that should lead to dialogue.

Then I remembered that last week they moved their creative account to McCann-Erickson. McCann are having a good “go” at building a bit of creativity and authority. I don’t know if it will work but they seem to have hired some good people. In a sense it’s a coming home. A long time ago McCann acquired Microsoft’s business to business agency. And later did some ads with men dressed as butterflies.

This new generation McCann seem in tune with their times. They will need to be. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that Microsoft are a tough client. They don’t appear to know how to buy what agencies sell. So they waste what they spend by assuming knowledge. And, I imagine, asserting themselves. I dread to think of the cost of their wastefulness.

Now think of the relatively abstemious Apple and the cumulative value of their expenditure. No contest.

McCann will have to establish some intellectual authority early. Or they will have to check whether there is still a ‘Saint of Answered Prayers.’