Microsoft part-time Chairman and co-founder Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld teamed up for the sole purpose of warming up the audience for the advent of the I'm a PC commercials. However, although part of the same $300 million marketing campaign was designed to revitalize the Windows brand, the Seinfeld and Gates ads managed to produce a very contrasting reaction from audiences compared to the I'm a PC bits. In fact, according to the Anderson Analytics 2008 fall survey involving college students, Microsoft could not have done any worse than to produce those video advertisements.

The Anderson Analytics 2008 fall survey via Advertising Age has the Gates and Seinfeld marketing endeavor voted off as the top choice in a ranking of bad commercials. Adding insult to injury, not only did college students select the Gates and Seinfeld ads as the number 1 choice for the bad commercial, but placed Apple's Get a Mac ads at the opposite end, giving the Cupertino-based hardware company the no. 1 spot among all good commercials.

Gates and Seinfeld were featured only in two commercials, following which Microsoft moved on to the I'm a PC ads. The tactic was largely interpreted as a sign of the Redmond company accepting the failure represented by the ads to gain traction with audiences. However, Microsoft defended its position, and indicated that it was the plan all along to scrap the Gates and Seinfeld ads as fast a possible and move from the ice-breaker stage of the campaign to the I'm a PC advertisements.

According to the Redmond company, studies ahead of the new Windows marketing campaign indicated that any video ad would have had just as bad a reception, thus the need for an appetizer ahead of the main course of the Windows brand revitalization attempt.

With the I'm a PC ads slashing back at Apple with its own weapons, the Cupertino company fired back with the Get a Mac ads claiming that Microsoft was spending its money on advertising instead of on fixing its Windows Vista operating system. Apple's advertising budget for 2008 was no less than $486 million. By comparison, back in 2007, Microsoft spent over was $1.2 billion on advertising. The Redmond giant never confirmed officially that it paid $300 million for the new Windows marketing campaign.