A Mac commercial has a simple message: “Macs are cooler than PCs, and ‘Mac Guy’ is annoying.” The message in this commercial is more complex. It says, “Bill Gates is down-to-earth enough to shop for budget shoes, but cool enough to hang with Jerry Seinfeld, who is so funny and cool and adorable. Bill Gates == Microsoft (as you know) and Bill Gates == cool and “real” (as you’ve just seen). Therefore, Microsoft == cool and real. Or, not as crappy as you think.”

That’s a lot of info to convey. I can see how they’d end up having to pay someone $10M to get that message out. It would have cost them at least twice that much if they’d put Steve Ballmer anywhere in view.