We don’t cover Microsoft’s advertising practices often, but today is an exception as the company is preparing to roll out a massive new campaign across mediums, pushing its complete consumer line of products.
According to AdAge, the content of the advertisements will include the Xbox, Kinect, Office, Windows Phone, and Windows. Microsoft has been working to better integrate its product lines, especially tying Xbox into its other offerings, by bringing Xbox LIVE to Windows Phone, and eventually, Windows 8.
The tagline for the entire global ad push is “It’s a great time to be a family.” Whether that will apply more to the ‘family’ of Microsoft’s products, or will be a theme of a united family operating in a Microsoft universe is not clear at this time. But it is certain that integration will be a theme.
Some 35 markets are on tap to receive the advertisements, which will include television spots and pre-roll content on online videos. The company that executed the Windows Phone launch campaign, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, put together this push. One might hope that it will be more effective than the WP7 ad slew which did not salvage lackluster sales.
The ads may have a halo effect on the lesser selling portions of Microsoft’s consumer landscape, such as Windows Phone. If the company can effectively leverage the Kinect, for example, it could perhaps juice its less popular products. However, the ads could be too broad, and thus unfocused and ineffective. Until we get an eye on each, we can’t say more than that.
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But Microsoft, which has taken a break from dropping green on the telly, is about to turn on the cash hose and let forth. Get ready.
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