Please explain this MSN commercial to me

Factual Questions
1

Okay, I’ve seen this Microsoft (MSN) commercial three times and I still don’t understand what the heck is going on.

Tango music playing. Inside a Europeanish cafe. Young man at a table surfing the net at a laptop. Beautiful young woman enters, reaches to shake mans hand, and spills his drink on his lap. He gets up to clean his pants, while she sneekily sends off an MSN email. The man returns, and she’s gone.

Next scene. Different (?) cafe. Same (?) woman enters. Sees a different (?) man at his laptop, with a bowl of soup on the table. She smiles knowingly at the camera. Fade to black.

WTF???

Is the idea that this hot babe goes around checking her email all over Europe by introducing herself to sucker guys and spilling their food on them? If so, what a stupid, pointless (not to mention sexist) commercial.

2

It sounds like you do understand what’s going on and just don’t find the premise/execution very funny. Having one character take advantage of another is not an uncommon idea in commercials (for humorous effect); what you may find sexist in the female character someone else may see as merely resourceful (if a tad cold-hearted). Plus, it is a way to get a viewer’s attention, which is the point of advertising in the first place.

3

The idea trying to be conveyed was that you could check your e-mail quickly and from any internet connected computer in the world. I do agree the joke used to get this point across was kind of lame though.