A few thoughts come to mind looking at Microsoft's sidewalk.com print
advertising campaign (the magazine campaign with photographs, not the
plain text billboards). The first thing that jumps out is their
obviously intentional rejection of the tag 'cyber.' The ads feature
artsy-blurry black-and-white photos, all very classy, in which the
sidewalk.com URL is seen floating on a gallery wall, in the neon sign of
a restaurant, on a movie ticket–in "real life," that is. I'm reminded
of those trendy stores in Soho which 'paint' their name or logo onto the
sidewalk in light projected from the transom of their front door. The
circles around the simple gothic–Trade? News?–letterforms of the
category headings make them look like the keys to an antique typewriter.
Intentional or not, it's certainly in keeping with the aesthetic of the
campaign. Unfortunately Microsoft's ad agency did not deploy this
aesthetic with uniform skill. The A for Art ad is a remarkable aesthetic
blunder, horribly executed in comparison to the liquidy slickness of the
M for Movie or R for Restaurant ads. The 'a'-and-URL logo is way, way
too big, does not quite resolve as being against the wall rather than in
front of certain gallery-goers, and the attempt to represent the ascetic
white space of a typical Soho gallery instead merely represents
indifferent art direction. In any case, the overall push of the campaign
is to establish Microsoft as a locus of urban desire, rather than the
behemoth whose software you use just because everybody else does.
At the top of each ad a plain white strip contains the fine print,
although in this case, the fine print is the ad's slogan: "where do you
want to go today?