Hindsight’s 20/20

By now, everybody’s heard about (and commented extensively on) Microsoft’s $300 million campaign to rebrand Windows as a indispensable tool for a billions-strong community of like-minded individualists living a life without walls. The good people at CP+B have set the interwebs abuzz with criticism and praise for the campaign. Time will tell whether that buzz equals a successful campaign, but if history is any guide, the answer may be staring us in the face.

Fire up your flux capacitor and look back at the June 2008 issue of Fast Company—the issue with a smirking Alex Bogusky gracing the cover. By the time this issue hit the newsstands, many in the ad world had already heard about CP+B’s relationship with Microsoft and all the talk centered around what the campaign would look like. As it turns out, the answer lay in the opening spread of the feature article, pictured here:

That headline again? “Believe it or not, he’s a PC.” Theme theme of the recently-launched campaign? “I’m a PC.”

If only we’d know then what we known now…

Link Dump

Lots of good stuff out on the ol’ interwebs this week. In no particular order:

The Orange Underground – an interesting campaign for Cheetos by Goodby Silverstein. There are a lot of nice little touches, like the pattern overlaying the video and the cheap “paper” and felt-tip pen drawings in the cookbook.

Exiled!, a new show from MTV. Take the Super Sweet 16 kids and send them to live with tribes in Africa and Antartica. It sounds like a joke, but the Fallon Planning Blog has the skinny.

Guinness, Life of a Dot, a nice progression of their award-winning Evolution spot. I think these pieces complement each other nicely without trying to rehash the exact same idea.

CP+B’s Holiday Card – made for a select group of their clients, this card features a nice little customizable video and some surprising interaction at the end. (Use this code: 547WERT)

More on the CP+B tip, they’re doing some nice work for Domino’s now; taking them back to their “30 minutes or it’s free” guarantee.

Cool Flash-based website for Soïa & Kyo, a fashion outerwear maker. Love the 3D space mixed with the hand-drawn elements.