My parents are middle aged lol. They know what a tablet is, they successfully bought me a great iPad.
The ad is terrible. How do I use the Surface? Does it make me dance? Oh look, it lets me look at pictures, so does every single other handheld device on the planet including a DS.
What features does the Surface show from that commercial that make people want to go and buy one? Better yet, that let people even know what it is.
Here, have a Nook commercial
Note the focus on reading. At the end it shows the device, with branding next to it, no mistaking the commercial is for the device. No flashy distractions, a clear focus on what the product is, and what it's good at (in this case, reading eBooks).
Here's a Kindle commercial. I'd say this commercial isn't very strong either. It's sure attention getting though, and it does stuff better than the surface commercial, but it's still not great. However, note again, like the Nook commercial, the end with the branding, the device and what it does. So make an attention getting ad that has a payoff at the end.
The surface ad doesn't do this. White text on a solid background with a generic word on it doesn't tell anybody anything. Show the device. "Surface" "A tablet powered by Windows 8" Let the user at least know what you're selling. Having people dance around with colors everywhere with absolutely no indication what part of the commercial is being sold is just bad. There's no branding, no focus on selling the product. The commercial needs to be about what the device does and why the customer needs it. The surface commercial doesn't do any of that AND it leaves the user confused on what a surface even is.