San Francisco  - Microsoft's first spot in its 300-million- dollar advertising campaign to revamp its stodgy image features comedian Jerry Seinfeld and company founder Bill Gates in a quirky attempt to buy shoes at a discount store.

The bizarre ad debuted late Thursday during the season opening game of the National Football League, and by Friday its effect was being heatedly debated on the internet.

The ad shows Seinfeld advising the world's richest man on how to stretch cheap new shoes that are a little too small.

Only at the end of the 90-second spot does the word Microsoft even get mentioned - when Seinfeld asks Gates if the company will "come out with something that makes our computers moist and chewy like cake, so we can just eat them while we're working."

Gates wiggles his rear to answer in the affirmative and the commercial ends with the Windows logo and the phrase "delicious."

Reactions to the ad were mostly negative, focusing on the failure to promote the company's Vista operating system as a better alternative to increasingly popular alternatives from Apple.

Microsoft said the debate over the ad signaled its success.

"The first phase of this campaign is designed to engage consumers and spark a new conversation about Windows - a conversation that will evolve as the campaign progresses, but will always be marked by humour and humanity," Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said in an e-mail to employees. (dpa)