Microsoft reportedly pours £28m into Nokia, Samsung Windows Phone marketing

Microsoft has reportedly provided strategic Windows Phone partners Nokia and Samsung with a £28 million marketing investment to assist the smartphone makers in boosting the profile of the company’s Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) platform and associated new handsets, Mobile Today reports.

Nokia is set to receive the lion’s share of the donation, taking £20 million of Microsoft’s Windows Phone warchest as part of its deal with the Redmond-based software giant earlier in the year. The money will be used to promote the launch of Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7.5 update, with new devices expected to be unveiled at Nokia World later this month.

Samsung, which signed a partnership as part of its patent licensing agreement in September, will also work with with Microsoft on joint marketing initiatives and future Windows Phone products.

Sources told Mobile Today:

‘Microsoft is funding a massive campaign with Nokia across every single media you can imagine. It’s the last roll of the dice for them. They must go big, bad and boldly. Microsoft is desperate to kick the hell out of Android. If they can get across how amazing Mango is they could really crack it this time.’

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We recently spoke with several sources close to Nokia and Microsoft who remarked that the Finnish mobile giant’s Windows Phone marketing push would be “like nothing we’ve seen before”, adding that the new adverts move away from Nokia’s old television and media campaigns.

In July, we reported that the Finnish mobile giant was to allocate £80 million of its own money to spend on a major global marketing campaign for its new Windows Phone smartphones. Reports suggest that Nokia will dedicate a six-month campaign to their new devices, which will be created by a number of agencies from Nokia’s global roster, which could include UK firms Wieden & Kennedy, Fallon and R/GA.