Day: October 15, 2002

Following on from my two Microsoft stories yesterday, Richard Bailey writes: “you’d think they (Microsoft) were the most incompetent and irresponsible marketers ever – judging from the many gleeful accounts of the pulling of the Apple switch ad (see Tom Murphy and Dan Gillmor for the background).”

Now maybe Richard has taken me up the wrong way but I don’t think Microsoft’s marketing is incompetent or irresponsible. I never meant to give that impression.

IMHO Microsoft are one of the most effective (product) marketing organizations on the planet. But Microsoft’s achilles heel is that they are very very agressive as an organism. And this agression has meant they have never fully replicated their product success in the corporate world and also is the driving factor behind blips like the faked Switch campaign. And there’s the rub ladies and gentlemen, its a fake. It was a mistake and they should be commended on their speed of correction but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It also doesn’t change the fact that in Microsoft’s most recent Marketing report they get two stars for the blogging program but lose one for the Switch episode.

For the record, many moons ago I worked on a Microsoft PR account and I have never before or since come across a more professional, passionate and effective PR machine. But let’s get some perspective, if I praise them when it’s right they should be knocked when it’s wrong. No one’s perfect. Just look at the spelling, grammer and waffle on this page…. [Comments]

So Microsoft is working with bloggers and gaining a competitive advantage. It’s legitimate and rewards their innovative marketing. But then they go and undo all that good work with sloppy, unimaginative and ill-advised tactics.

Apple�s Switch campaign � which I think is quite compelling advertising � is obviously annoying Microsoft.

And as I discussed last week, when companies feel threatened they do the oddest things.

In this case Microsoft initiated their own “Switch” campaign – but of course this time it detailed Mac users who had switched to Windows.

One problem, they weren�t real users, they were Microsofties � using stock photography trying to pretend they were real people. Doh!

If the Internet has taught us anything, it has taught us that manufacturing untruths is a very very dangerous business.

Of course at the first sniff of trouble (They were rumbled on Slashdot) Microsoft removed the page, but the wonderful Google has cached it and Dave Winer has a screen shot!!

Microsoft is one of the most effective product marketing organizations on the planet. Full stop.

While it’s corporate marketing and public affairs activities can sometime err on the wrong side of agressive, their product PR machine is astonishingly effective. They monitor blogs in all their target markets and have a full proactive outreach program to the bloggers. Nick Denton points out just how fast Microsoft are.

Mitch Ratcliffe raises concerns that Microsoft will be able to exert undue influence on bloggers who don’t have the training to cut through the noise.

Doc Searls gives his, always readable, tuppence on the matter.

I�m sure you have by this stage heard about Ross Irvine�s latest missive on PR and the Internet. It�s been posted to every PR mailing list I�m on. Ross� focus is primarily focused on activism and NGO�s but it�s relevant to a wider audience.

Ross does make a lot of very valid points in the piece, entitled �PR Kittens� though sometimes I wish he would reduce the number of crass generalizations about how incompetent PR people are online. While I would agree our profession is not a stellar online performer, I find some of his views a little patronizing for my taste. However having said that, you could do worse than have a read of it, at the very least it�ll provoke a response. He has other opinion pieces on his site which are also worth a browse.

I read on the pages of O�Dwyer�s that Mediamap will no longer be using Bacon�s database and will instead replace it with its own media database.

Now you would think that for something this fundamental to their business that Mediamap would take a couple of minutes to inform their customers, wouldn�t you?

According to some colleagues who use the service, Mediamap haven�t said a word. These same customers were also disgruntled at Mediamap�s complete lack of communication over their new Performa product (a CRM for press relations) it seems that the only information on Performa has also been found in the trade pages, whilst the company has made little or no effort to brief paying customers.

No doubt they�ll be flabbergasted when subscribers leave their service. As I’m sure we’re all sick pointing out… a little communication is a good thing.

Richard Bailey has a regularly updated UK-focused PR blog running here. Richard�s blog predates all other PR blogs that I�m aware of.

I have been a little slow posting over the past week as the day job has taken precedence – c’est la guerre….

Anyhow, there�s lots to catch up on with Microsoft showcasing the very best and worst of online communications, a new online piece on ‘PR and the Internet’ and a newly discovered UK blog and Mediamap’s great communications practices….