HTC goes full speed with Windows Phone in Europe

One of the chief complaints that was leveled against the Windows Phone team at the launch of the platform was a lack of functional, and impactful, advertising. The phone line launched, but the larger consumer market did not as much as shrug, as it didn’t know what it might be shrugging over.

With the launch of the second generation of Windows Phone software, the Mango update, the future might be different. Given all that has changed in the last year, you might even want to say that this holiday season is the effective relaunch of the WP7 platform. Today, news came forth that HTC is pushing its new phones in France with enough gusto that it is turning heads across the larger Microsoft community.

We don’t cover advertising as much as we might here on TNW Microsoft, mostly because it is a boring, overplayed topic, but this time we had no choice. HTC has planted ads on the French YouTube homepage, taken out full-page ads in a London newspaper, and put up a billboard that is truly massive. And this is what we have photos of. It is without a doubt that we are missing several other elements of the HTC push.

Before we get into the why, check out the following images, of the billboard and the newspaper ad, just for fun:

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Right, that aside, why does any of this matter? Because HTC has made new investment into Windows Phone, products that now comprise some 30% of its volume, and differentiate its core base away from being ‘just another’ Android OEM, a market that is increasingly crowded. In short, HTC has the chance to become a leader in a second platform, and seems keen to make that happen. That HTC’s Windows Phone handsets have been received well in the past hardly hurts.

Also, Microsoft is gifting cash to both Nokia and Samsung to run massive ad campaigns. This could be HTCs response. Whatever the reason, or reasons, might be, HTC seems to have made its ante into the Windows Phone game for the holiday sales cycle.