14 DAY TRIAL // In February, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Redmond-based software giant Microsoft unveiled officially its newest mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7, and now some details on the marketing campaign for the platform emerged. As it happened with the older Windows Mobile 6.5 client, the ads are focused on showing that people are using Windows Phones, but they will also focus on the 'people' part, something that played an important role in advertising the Windows 7 OS too.
According to an article on ZDNet, David Webster, the chief strategy officer in Microsoft’s central marketing group, has recently unveiled a few details on the ads campaign for Windows Phone 7 Series, as well as for some other products that will land during the ongoing year. According to him, the Windows Phone 7 ads will be the result of a partnership with Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, and it seems that the marketing and product planning teams worked together for the building of the ads right from the start.
“The messaging “needs to reflect customers we have and customers we don’t,” he said. It also needs to explain why Microsoft is opting for a different phone model with elements like hubs and Live Tiles, instead of the app-centric approach of its competitors, Webster said. Windows Phone 7 also is the perfect vehicle for Microsoft to highlight the interdependence and convergence of different Microsoft brands and technologies, since Windows Phone 7 devices will be running Bing, Office Mobile, Zune services, Internet Explorer, and Windows Live, Webster pointed out,” ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley notes.
At the same time, Webster also noted that there is a big difference between smartphones and other products people can enjoy, and that even if they say they are satisfied with their handset, customers usually have a lot of aspects to complain about. While other manufacturers use certain marketing models and messages, Microsoft is set to deliver a new model, mainly due to the fact that Windows Phone 7 marks a new beginning for the company.