Microsoft wants to be cool in the worst possible way. The bad news is that it’s throwing money at the problem. First there were the Seinfeld and Bill Gates ads that showed us that not even the man who created George Costanza and Cosmo Kramer could make Microsoft more endearing.

The Gates and Seinfeld duo died more quickly than an ill-fated Laurel and Hardy when Bing became the next bet for a big brand-building push. Touted as ‘the decision engine,’ the Bing campaign took Google head-on by linking the search engine to the global financial collapse. Watching Microsoft’s ‘Manifesto’ advert on YouTube, you’re hit with a chaotic flurry of viral imagery and then lurched headlong into the great depression while a foreboding voiceover drones: “While everyone was searching, there was bailing... While everyone was lost in the links, there was collapsing.”