RSSIf Microsoft sold a lifestyle, would you buy it?
By Joe Wilcox | Published September 17, 2009, 5:03 PM
In the Northern Hemisphere, Autumn is typically a time of bright colors and falling leaves. Perhaps Microsoft has moved south of the equator to Spring, because the company is poised for brand rebirth -- a reawakening of key consumer brands.
Six brands -- Bing, Xbox, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows 7 and Zune -- are coming to market as new versions and/or marketing campaigns. No single brand will revitalize Microsoft's overall consumer image. But combined, these brands could revive the company's consumer brand profile. I predict that they also are Microsoft's last stand. Failure now will resign Microsoft's brand image to large businesses.
There is a seventh brand, which is as important as the other six combined: Microsoft Store. But that is more a 2010 story, as the company only plans to open two retail locations, both in the United States, this year.
Key to the six (OK, seven) brands' success is marketing, which Microsoft has excelled at for much of 2009. Last year, I harshly criticized Microsoft advertising agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky for its early handling of the "I'm a PC" campaign. In my December 2008 recommendations for 2009, I told Microsoft to "fire your ad agency." But the marketing came together in early 2009. "The Rookies" and "Laptop Hunters" -- launched in February and March, respectively -- are simply great advertising campaigns. Bing is even better. I was wrong about Crispin, Porter + Bogusky.
Good Marketing Demands Advertiser Commitment
To really succeed, good marketing requires cash, commitment, consistency and creativity for starters and also patience -- willingness to let a marketing campaign succeed. In 2006, Microsoft gave up too quickly on the Windows Vista "Wow" campaign, afterward pulling back nearly all Windows marketing for about 18 months. Meanwhile, Apple seized control of Windows messaging with its persistently jabbing "Get a Mac" commercials. Microsoft is on a marketing roll right now, but the company has to stick with it and extend it.
Good marketing:
- Tells a story -- and doing so is aspirational
- Promotes a lifestyle -- and with it a sense of belonging and community associated with the brand
- Shows people why their lives will be better -- how they will be happier -- for using products X, Y or Z
- Makes people feel good -- and by association brings up that good feeling whenever seeing the brand or product
Microsoft's current big consumer campaigns -- for Bing and Windows -- meet these criteria quite well. But there is a missing undercurrent that Microsoft must bring to the surface as it markets the consumer brands: Lifestyle. The company has got to better sell a Microsoft lifestyle, and it's perhaps no coincidence that the six brands are collectively foundation for such a thing.
The most successful brands sell a lifestyle. Among high-tech companies, Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion are exceptionally good at lifestyle marketing. In August I asked: "What is the Microsoft lifestyle?" I couldn't find it, and I had been looking hard for a long time. But as new Bing features, Zune 4.0 software and Zune HD come to market this week and Microsoft prepares Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows 7 for October launches, hints of a larger lifestyle pitch are coalescing. The Microsoft lifestyle has been fragmented for too many years. Around these products, Windows Live and Xbox, a tighter Microsoft lifestyle could emerge.
But Microsoft has got to sell it, and that's a message CEO Steve Ballmer and his honchos must hear and act on. Laptop Hunters shows that Microsoft can do good brand marketing and seize the messaging away from a competitor (e.g., Apple). But Bing shows the real power of good marketing. The Bing TV commercials are clever and catchy -- and they frequently air on many primetime television shows. I record most TV programs to skip the ads, but I almost always stop for a Bing commercial. What about you?
Marketing matters. Two summers ago, number of searches at Ask.com increased by over 10 percent in a single month, according to ComScore. Not coincidentally, Ask.com was running an aggressive TV ad campaign. Fast forward to 2009. Microsoft launches the Bing brand with a massive marketing campaign, and the results show in consistently increasing search share. Yesterday, Nielsen Online said that Bing's US searches increased 22.1 percent month-on-month in August, bringing search share to 10.7 percent.
The Google Lesson
Now it's time for my bold assertion: Right now, Bing is Microsoft's most important consumer brand. It's Google that shows why and perhaps that Microsoft's search deal with Yahoo is smart after all.
Google is a marketing amorphism. Until recently, Google did little to directly market its products. Yet Google has strong consumer brand awareness and offers a clearly definable lifestyle around Apps, search and other products or services. Like Windows, Google search is something most people use everyday. But people are aware they use Google, because they must actively open a search page where there is the colorful name logo.
People can easily forget they use Windows; there is no strong brand identification, and operating systems function too much as utilities. From a branding perspective, the best thing Microsoft has done for the operating system in years (other than advertising) is to replace the "Start" button with the Windows logo.
Ballmer has obsessed about Google as a competitor to a fault. Microsoft has focused too much chasing Google when improving its own products and their marketing mattered more. For that reason, I initially dismissed the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal. But in retrospect, the deal makes sense for a different reason: Branding and lifestyle marketing. The more people that use Bing everyday, the better for Microsoft's core brand -- at the least. Bing marketing and the Yahoo deal are sure to increase the number of people who touch a Microsoft brand every day. Sorry, Steve Ballmer, Windows Live isn't touch enough.
Microsoft can't be sure consumers will upgrade to Windows 7, certainly not when. According to analysts, most people still use Windows XP -- not Vista. But Microsoft can assure that people use Bing, if the marketing and Yahoo deal are there. Already, Bing is gaining share. Search is a utility most people use most every day, so the brand can only gain from this exposure. From Bing and its associated and Windows Live services, Microsoft can push a lifestyle around communications, convenience, mobility and value, among other attributes.
Four Digital Lifestyle Hubs
While Bing's importance won't diminish, other Microsoft brands will grow to overshadow it, principally Windows 7 during holiday 2008. Windows is Microsoft's most important lifestyle hub, not just for consumers but businesses. Now that the Windows Live team has joined with the broader Windows group, I expect product/service synergies and lifestyle opportunities to increase. Microsoft will have to punch it home with creative, consistent and committed marketing.
In an ideal scenario the six brands would connect the Microsoft lifestyle around four hubs: Bing/Windows Live, Windows 7/Windows Live, Windows Mobile/Bing/Windows Live and Xbox/Xbox Live and Zune/Zune Marketplace. But Microsoft's mobile strategy is a train wreck. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't what Microsoft needs to hold back upstarts Apple and Google or the revitalizing Nokia. However, Microsoft deserves huge praise for coordinating a single mobile OS launch across multiple wireless carriers, as it plans in October for Windows Mobile 6.5. It's an amazing feat and something that should scare Apple and Google executives witless. If Microsoft can do this with a weak Windows Mobile OS release, what could the company do with a strong product?
Microsoft's mobile story -- the one that matters -- is confined to Zune HD. There Microsoft will confront strong comparisons to Apple and iPod touch and criticism for a weak smartphone OS strategy (It's already started, search the blogosphere). But Zune HD isn't an iPod touch wannabe. It's something more and something different. The device is a portable media player first above all else and perhaps the last in the category. Convergence that includes telephony is the future -- and, I hope, a Zune phone. Any PMP shouuld only be a placeholder for something to come.
Fortunately, Microsoft has a strong lifestyle message around Zune 4.0 software and the Zune HD. It's about consuming high-quality digital content on the go, and that lifestyle extends to Windows through Media Center and eventually to Xbox. Around Zune and Xbox, Microsoft is pushing an entertainment lifestyle. By the way, so is Apple with iPod touch, iTunes and portable gaming. I'm waiting for Microsoft to extend Xbox gaming to Zune. Some unsolicited advice for Microsoft: The Xbox Live team and not the Windows Mobile group should control the Zune applications store.
In a future post, I will explore how the four lifestyle hubs fit together today and should fit better in the future. For now, I'll close by giving Steve Ballmer and his honchos some advice: Advertise, advertise, advertise. If you don't control the lifestyle messaging, some competitor will. Must I say Apple?
Seems to me Microsoft couldn't get their asre in gear if they tried. Carmi's piece on Microsoft makes some interesting points about the direction they should head in. But they have their hedas in the sand. [shrugs]
Score: 0
|I could not buy a lifestyle from Microsoft, as I would always be at the doctors being fixed. Sorry.
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|MS does sell a lifestyle.....it's employees. For them, the answer is obviously yes.
Score: -1
|Good points Joe. However, selling a lifestyle when the last decade Microsoft worked very hard to be regarded as an Enterprise ready company might be contradictory. Don't you think?
On the other hand, when you try to do so much as a company (...microsoft runs my data center and my living room game console....) that might be inevitable... Apple of course doesn't have this problem...it's not an Enterprise company (not yet anyway...)
Score: -1
|I like the title... so I'll come up with one of my own:
If Betanews reported genuine beta articles, would you read it?
Score: -1
|*laughing*
They don't even know what that word means anymore.
Has Beta Lost It's Meaning? [Betanews.com - Scott M. Fulton III]
Score: 0
|I mean, don't get me wrong... the article is interesting, but something I would expect to read in Business Week, The Economist or Fast Company. Somehow I think the editors in this site believe that just because the article features an tech company, it is within the boundries of "beta"news. Well... this article/opinion piece is about marketing and brand recognition, not technology.
Score: -1
|beta-believe it.
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|Marketing, product understanding, and product Cohesion have always been things Microsoft has been bad at.
Maybe with the moving of the XBox and Office managers around, it will continute to bring cohesion to their products, as it already did with the Zune, XBox, Windows7 and Live projects, which is a move in the right direction. (Notice that there are not 2 versions of Photo Galler, Mail, Messenger anymore.)
Microsoft is great at platforms and development technology, but when it comes to selling their products to general consumers they tend to really be bad, with even Microsoft's own Marketing and non-development level of employees often not having a clue of the technology.
My best example of this is Vista, when it offered a lot of good things, Microsoft marketing shoved Flip3D and irrelevant crap about the OS and their own people don't know the technology or feature and why it mattered, so they never sold it for the good things.
Even take a feature Apple made a large part of their marketing - Vista has 'Previous Versions' which is actually better than OS X's Time Machine, as it does BOTH backup version tracking and on volume tracking, and yet people still don't have a clue what it is.
I have watched Microsoft marketing fail over and over to understand the 'cool' things that should have been marketing headlines for products. Heck even going back to Win98, they NEVER did advertise it included a new OS level audio stack that allowed seamless multi-audio streams,(Playing sound from multiple applications at the same time) which was one of the most un-noticed, yet important features of Win98.
Microsoft could sell a lifestyle, but it takes further coordination of the product managers and developers, which it appears they are doing. However, it also will require a much better marketing team that understands the technology and translates geek into mainstream consumer better.
Score: -1
|usually when software is re written to perform in a certain manner, the re-write produces additional features.
god only knows how much money microsoft would have wasted if it decided to build an o.s. around a flip3d feature.
but nothing is surprising anymore.
Score: -3
|funny title...
the current lifestyle for most americans is one standing in the unemployment line, living in homeless shelters, gathering food from food banks, losses in savings, retirement and investments, bullied by creditors, etc....
if anything, what the title really implies is that we would be supporting their lifestyle;
for the products they are making and catering to are not for the typical american at this time.
Score: -5
|"the current lifestyle for most americans is one standing in the unemployment line, living in homeless shelters, gathering food from food banks, losses in savings, retirement and investments, bullied by creditors, etc...."
You drank too much kool-aid.
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|as cheap as it is,
some people can't afford the kool-aid lifestyle as well.
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|No, I wouldn't buy it or even take it if it was free!
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|I'd pirate it :P
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|Any PMP shouuld only be a placeholder for something to come.
should
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|didn't we already cover this in a previous article? ;P
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|I dont have a life, but I wouldnt subscribe to ms's life - or any others' for that fact. Your life/lifestyle is the result of decades of life experiences.
Score: -1
|"If Microsoft sold a lifestyle, would you buy it?"
Absolutely !
Score: 1
|In The Money with Micro$oft!
Money is the central 'issue' or should I say obsession,
of our friends at Micro$oft.
Their recent 'Bing' TV ads feature scads of 'products',
with flying 'gold coins', including a big hint to users, that
money will be flowing, via the 'Bing cashback' feature.
The (would-be) M$ 'lifestyle' is all about 'business'; selling
'products' to 'consumers' and even bribing said consumers
to use the 'Bing' thing.
M$ is struggling to 'prove' they are 'pro-business', but to a
fault, I would say. There is nothing 'warm and fuzzy' about
(the so-called 'consumer') becoming yet another link in the
'supply chain'. Except maybe for MBA wannabe's, or those
whose 'lifestyle' already is firmly grounded in money as bottom
line, the M$ approach rings hard and 'pragmatic' to a fault.
If the only way that M$ can tickle the 'spending gland' is by
such crass methods (and indeed, it seems to be that way),
the M$ future does NOT look good. In that, I certainly agree
with the author of the commented article.
I sense that he is 'encouraging' M$ to 'get with it' and to put
up enough of a barrage of images and messages which will
'move' the user/consumer to 'join in' to some synthetic
'lifestyle', as fashioned by M$ and their marketing minions.
In reality, though... his article is a running commentary
on just how disconnected is M$ from the population from whom
they wish to make a living. I have been observing the
uber-cynical M$ efforts for many years, and it not only leaves
me cold, but it has created a 'firewall of caution' between me
and any and all M$ products. If there is a brand or even an
association by or with M$, red flags go up for me.
I do wish every good thing for M$, however. Obviously, the
only way that things will improve for them, is if they improve
the things they make. I look forward to observe what impact
the new Google OS will have, esp as bolstered by the Open
Source community. Those who want 'utility computing' deserve
something much better (and cheaper, like FREE) than Windows.
Perhaps the Google 'Chromium' OS will act as impetus for M$
to do better. But it is more likely that M$ will instead, simply
redouble its FUD spin of anti-Google astroturfing, if not use its
lobbyists to change laws to the effect of trying to impoverish
(if not simply marginalize) Google. Such efforts are already in
place, here in the USA and around the world, esp in SA.
The M$ business model has fallen off the runway, and can't
get up. Maybe this is because it is so obese with corporate
profits, that it cannot be bothered to relate to 'ordinary people',
preferring to remain recumbent while gobbling the Google bon-bons
which fall passively into its quivering maw. It fantasizes itself as
'Lauren', while forgetting that 'Lauren' was a paid shill for the gigantic
machine which treads water by means of 'astroturfing', while the
tsunami of Google washes over it again and again. Glub, glub.
Score: -9
|Please lay off the coffee V$TG!
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|Wow. You're not at all retarded. No, Sir...
[/sarcasm]
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|In the spirit of this as well as other recent...umm..."provocative articles designed to make us think about this kind of important stuff, I'd like to suggest a few important issues which might be good topics to consider; such as:
Paper or plastic ?
MacDonald's or Burger King ? (We'll be sure to hear from the Wendy's fanboys on that one.)
Beatles or Rolling Stones ?
Jay Leno at 10:00 or 11:00 ?
Should I upgrade from my old wooden rake to a fiberglass one for this autumn's leaf-raking ? (We'll probably hear from the leaf-blower fans on this one)
Comet or Ajax ?
Laces or Moccasins ?
My Sam's Club membership is expiring soon. Should I renew, or switch to BJ's ?
Please feel free to add to this list. Perhaps they'll do an in-depth, provocative and thought-provoking article on one of them.
Score: -1
|"Paper or plastic ?"
Cloth. Reusable. Sheesh... Only you Anti-Earth people could be so clueless. Admit it, you HATE the planet! ;)
"MacDonald's or Burger King ?"
Um...Culvers. With Sonic a close second. You really suck at this. :p
"Beatles or Rolling Stones ?"
What? ...and totally leave out the BEST? Everyone knows The Animals started the british Invasion. Anything before or after was just dumb coincidence. Talk about your epic fail...
"Wood vs. fiberglass"
Steel. Do you hate America? If you could set off a Nuke in the US, it'd be in Detroit, wouldn't it? You're a terrorist, aren't you?
"Comet or Ajax ?"
Mr. Clean. He's Cool, he's smooth, and he gets the job done. True American Brand there. Commie.
"Jay Leno at 10:00 or 11:00 ?"
Both. Duh?
"Laces or Moccasins ? "
Again with the anti-american BS. Ever heard of Velcro?
"My Sam's Club membership is expiring soon. Should I renew, or switch to BJ's ? "
BJ's? Surely that's some sick sexual reference, you hooligan. Costco. It's not Wal-Mart. They're a bunch of socialists.
You're such a troll. Go post on on slashdot, you pinko-commie-Earth hater!
*grin*
That was fun. Do more.
Score: 3
|Didn't you watch the Goode Family! Those reusable are so yesterday as they are made in sweatshops in Asia.
Foroget McDonald's, Burger King, Culvers, or Sonic! Give me Carl's Junior, the only true fast food restaurant where they said screw the health nuts and if someone wants a greasy 1lb burger, will give it to you.
Score: -1
|Culvers ?? Carl's Junior ??
We don't have those here in the Big East. Sounds like the fast-food equivalent of Linux ;P
OK...
Chicken or Steak ?
D.C or Marvel ?
Marx Brothers or Three Stooges ?
Chunky or Creamy ?
Toilet Paper off the roller: Over or Under ? (VERY important. A real deal-breaker)
Boxers or briefs ?
Cash or Credit ?
Cowboys or Giants ?
And finally...the grandaddy of them all...
Coke or Pepsi ?
Please hurry, it's past my bedtime ;)
Score: -1
|You buy 'overpriced' software from Microsoft, then you hear people carry on about M$ this, M$ the monopoly, M$ is reaming us with the cost of the OS, blah blah blah.
You buy 'overpriced' hardware from Apple, then you hear people carry on about "The Mac Experience" and how superior Apple products are (despite the fact that they're made with the same components as your typical Dell, Gateway, Asus, etc.) They innovate and everything that comes after (and mind you, sometimes even before) are clones and iCopies.
There's a def. double standard going on between the PC vs. MAC, MAC vs. PC argument, and I think for the majority a 'lifestyle' just doens't exist. Apple supporters have floated with the idea of this imaginary Mac Experience, and I think that is where the lifestyle scenario comes in. I've only ever referred to the PC experience jokingly because there isn't one. I've never met a person that is die hard loyal to say, Dell (the only PC manuf. I can think of that, similar to Apple, has the majority of it's peripherals self-branded).
So when I think of this whole subscribing to the 'brand' lifestyle, I can only think of the people who religiously purchase Apple computers, or for example, Sony brand stuff (ex, Vaio, Walkman, PS3, TVs, etc....you get the idea) and feel as if they are truly distinguishing themselves from, well...'the rest'.
For the 'the rest', well....we enjoy the ups and downs of our 'whatever' brand things, we have the freedom to buy a Zune Or an Ipod, a G1 or an Iphone, a $140 Linksys router or the $200 Apple version and the ability to enjoy different flavors and brands of everything without having to argue that we've paid more for it because it provides a certain experience.
I wouldn't get into any kind of 'lifestyle', much more the idea of a MS one, as I like my options. I love Windows 7, I like MS software, but that's where the loyalty ends. I can safely say (because I've tried it all!), that at this moment, I would never switch to OS X or Linux. That doesn't mean I'm a MS fanboy.
If I want to buy a PS3 I'm going to buy one (vs. the XBox360). If I want to buy an Ipod, I'm gonna do it (vs. the Zune) and if I want an Iphone (vs. a WMo device), so help me gosh - it will be mine!, so I guess I just don't fit?...or rather, it doesn't fit me.
Score: 0
|Instead of worrying about a lifestyle for MS, I would be much happier if they would improve thier funtionality between their brands.
There are already some strides in areas (streaming pc media over xbox as an example), but we are still not to the level of connectivity among the microsoft product line that we should be.
I do think the relationship between the xbox 360 and the zune hd could be a pivotal step in a much larger process as MS migrates toward the cloud.
Score: 2
|No. And I wouldn't buy a "lifestyle" that comes with a company name, no matter if it's called a "Playstation Lifestyle" or an "Apple Lifestyle". Why would I decide to align myself with any one company? Their interests and mine are mutually exclusive. Sure they make technology I use, but I have no reason to lock into ONLY the technology they offer. What happens when something better comes along, and it's not made by my company? If I subscribe to a Lifestyle brand, I go out of my way to tear the better technology down and build mine up artificially. The only people who have a reason to immerse in the lifestyle are employees of the company... and do I see a check in my mailbox from any of the companies?
By all means, live the "Connected Lifestyle" or the "Gamer Lifestyle". But for heaven's sake, don't join a "Shill Lifestyle".
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|"In August I asked: "What is the Microsoft lifestyle?" I couldn't find it"
*sigh*
That is because...as we told you then; There isn't one.
I am sorry, but if your "lifestyle" is defined by your computing habits, you need help. If you need Apple to tell you you're "hip" and "cool" because you own an iphone...you need help.
Microsoft doesn't need this BS. They are doing just fine with their current line of advertising. They just need to keep it up.
They could jump on the "there's no software selection" bandwagon for it.
or sell "Office Live" as a "iLife/iWork - but everywhere" deal.
Score: 7
|"I am sorry, but if your "lifestyle" is defined by your computing habits, you need help. If you need Apple to tell you you're "hip" and "cool" because you own an iphone...you need help."
(i'd add that you'd need more help in the Apple case, if bragging about being tech-glam makes you feel alive...) but anyway! nice words.
Score: -1
|I might pirate it off the Pirate bay. But it would just crash worse than our current life. How about that modern look of apple. That might be one to look into.
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|