REDMOND, Wash. -- Get ready for Microsoft's new soft sell.
At a time when the software giant is under fire in its long-running antitrust battle,
The latest campaign under the new strategy tries to put a friendly face on Microsoft, a company that has been labeled by a federal judge as a "predatory" monopolist.
"Microsoft is perceived as successful, effective, and efficient, but not perceived as warm and approachable," says Mike Delman, the company's general manager. "We are trying to make the brand more approachable."
TV ad blitz In one commercial, a mischievous son ignores his mother's warnings and tries to tap into a Web site he's not supposed to be looking at, only to be stopped by safeguards installed on his computer. In another TV ad, a dyslexic girl in her bedroom uses a computer program to help her learn how to read. Two other commercials have already started airing.
Microsoft has ventured into branding before -- most memorably with the slogan, "Where do you want to go today?" But nearly all of those ads featured specific products, Delman says. The fact the campaign is on the air also underscores Microsoft's new emphasis on television advertising. Previously, it focused more on print campaigns, which can communicate technical details of software programs.
"We didn't point to good things about the company. People didn't know that it was important to tell stories," Delman concedes. "The fact we haven't done so earlier shows a little bit of naivete."
It's one of a number of mea culpas Delman has to offer on Microsoft's behalf. For years, Microsoft had splintered responsibility for advertising along its many different product lines, creating more than 75 different ad budgets, ranging from half a million to $100 million, and numerous small fiefs all battling fiercely to achieve their sales targets.
With so many managers directing so many different campaigns, Delman says the advertising messages grew increasingly complicated. One magazine might have several Microsoft ads that each looked different from the others.
With so many managers sticking their hands in the creative pot, executives say the resulting Microsoft ads have often been less than inspiring. "The ads have taken a second seat to products," says Allen Adamson, managing director at New York-based Landor Associates. "They haven't gotten their fair share of advertising punch because their efforts were split up among a number of different messages."
Now, Microsoft is consolidating with one internal group most of the responsibilities for its ads. The company awarded almost all of its estimated $350 million account to McCann-Erickson last year. The resulting new campaign reflects Microsoft's realization how critical image, and image advertising, are in the booming tech sector.
Importance of image "Technology is now mainstream. We're not marketing to the few but to the masses," Delman says. "Unless we're clear about our business proposition in marketing, we will fall behind in the space."
Consolidating so much of its advertising offers another potential benefit for Microsoft: improving its sometimes rocky dealings with its ad agencies. The company has had a reputation within agency circles for being a difficult client. It parted ways with Wieden & Kennedy, the Portland, Ore., agency that created the "Where do you want to go today?" slogan, in the middle of last year.
Microsoft and its new agency, McCann, also have had ups and downs. McCann, coping with changes brought on by its own restructuring, has lost a number of people to rival agencies in what has become a fiercely competitive labor market for ad agencies.
Just this week, the Los Angeles office of Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day snatched away McCann's freshly hired chief creative officer, Gary Topolewski, who was en route from a Detroit agency to join McCann. McCann is hunting for his successor.
Under Microsoft's consolidated advertising structure, Delman says, McCann will no longer have to field calls from 10 or more Microsoft executives a day. "This will help McCann attract and retain good employees," he says. "Part of optimizing marketing is having a good agency relationship."
The consolidation inside Microsoft doesn't include consumer campaigns such as the ones for Microsoft's new X-Box, its new video-game console, or its MSN Internet Service. Those accounts, however, also are handled by McCann, which is charged with creating a unified look for all Microsoft ads.
Despite the flogging Microsoft's image has taken during the antitrust trial, recent surveys say most consumers still have positive opinions about the company. But agency executives who have left McCann say the barrage of negative publicity may have hurt the company's image with an important audience -- technology managers, particularly those in Silicon Valley.
"The technical customer listened to the background noise and is wary of what Microsoft represents," one former McCann executive said.
A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.
Inside Microsoft, responsibility for marketing initiatives is now consolidated under under Mich Mathews, the company's recently appointed vice president of marketing. Mathews also will oversee public relations, events, consumer relationship marketing and the new Solutions Marketing Group, which focuses on cross-product campaigns.
Three new television commercials start airing Monday. The spots, created by Microsoft agency McCann-Erickson Worldwide, a unit of Interpublic Group, depict the company's technology as a positive force in society.
For years, technology companies had viewed advertising as a narrow, tactical device: Advertise the features of your product in computer magazines to persuade technology managers to buy it. But as technology began to dominate the headlines and the stock market, several companies, notably IBM Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc., began to invest heavily in glamorous TV commercials to cement perceptions of them as leaders of the future.
