The new marketing push behind Windows 7 debuts

Oct 22, 2009 17:43 GMT  ·  By

Believe it or not, but I’m actually not trying to get all the credit for Windows 7. “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea” is actually the new marketing campaign that Microsoft will be running in no less than six countries starting today, October 22nd, 2009. It’s no coincidence that October 22nd is the official general availability date for Windows 7, and Microsoft is revealing the advertising effort that will help introduce Windows 7 to customers. At the bottom of this article you will be able to find a number of embedded video advertisements from the Redmond company.

What is interesting is that Microsoft went with a much mellower message compared to what it had in store for Windows Vista. There’s no more Wow, at least not a marketing Wow, and yet there are plenty of wows to go around, but this time exhaled by the customers themselves.

In some of the video ads you will be able to see the "1 billion = 7” slogan, designed to illustrate a new face of the Windows development team, and of Microsoft for that matter, one that actually keeps its ears to the street. The software giant notes that Windows 7 was built in close collaboration with both partners and customers, and that feedback from both groups was harvested and subsequently integrated into the operating system.

The “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea” ads are boasting the concept that Windows 7 was built the way that end users wanted it to be built. Microsoft is stressing that it made Windows 7 faster, cleaner, less RAM hungry, faster to boot, etc. In this sense, Windows 7 is everything that the current 1 billion Windows users around the world want from their next-generation operating system.

The marketing campaign was put together by Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, the same ad agency that created the “I’m a PC” push set up to bring new life to the Windows brand. With “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea” Microsoft continues on the same line, making users feel special, listened to, part of the biggest community worldwide, independent of race, location and language.