Windows 7 on Family Guy? Oh, that’s EPIC!

Wait. What? No?

Oh.

Sokay, Microsft backed out of the Family Guy/Seth MacFarlane deal and ad blogs are abuzz. Abuzz I say over talk of Holocaust jokes. I’ve seen various responses from Microsoft is blowing it to Crispin ran out of ideas to have to resort to a tie-in like that. (Hmmm, not sure about that. A lot of brands are going the integrated/product placement/branded contenet route. If you’re going to fault Crispin for that, then go after Unilever and other brands for doing exactly the same thing.)

But the only thing I can think to say that hasn’t been said is that it seems Microsoft is just making it easy for Apple whenever they do stuff like this. Why not focus on building a stable platform so Apple can’t attack it in ads. Go ahead and do the tie-in that your consumers would find funny, seeing how a lot of them watch the show. You can bet the kids in the laptops for $600 spots watch it.

The other thing here actually allows me to work in a shameless plug for the next episode of AdVerve. This week, Angela and I talk about social media guruism. Ad blogs aren’t the only ones abuzz over the Family Guy deal either. Right now, armchair social media gurus are furiously blogging away about how Microsoft missed an opportunity to engage in conversation, or how they’ve now created a bigger PR mess for themselves. A transparent mess I say.

(I’m not defending Microsoft, but one thing you won’t see the Twitterazzi mention is that maybe this simply is an example of a client that may not be aligned with a certain creative direction, because that’s just how they’re wired. No amount of social media outrage outreach will change that.

What we discuss on the show is how this is really the only way someone in social media can show anything tangible that they’ve done. Instead of a portfolio of work, they have case studies on a blog about what Brand X shoulda, woulda and coulda done.

So tune in, ya’ social media guru freaks!