Microsoft Strikes Back

Yesterday Microsoft unveiled its new Window's Phone 7, its latest attempt to break into the smartphone market, and, with it, its new ad campaign.

The company posted two new ads called "Really" and "Season of the Witch" on their WindowsPhone YouTube account. Targeting consumers who are sick of being married to their mobiles, the new TV ads, created in collaboration with agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, describes the new product as "the phone to save us from our phones". Both ads showcase the extent to which modern phone users are attached to their phones with clips of a bride texting down the aisle, a motorist texting after a car crash, etc. I hate to say it, but several of the scenes from "Really" could really have been taken from my life; e.g. emailing in the shower, texting at the urinal, etc. At the end of both clips, the tag line "It's time for a phone to save us from our phone appears", indirectly portraying iPhone and BlackBerry users as so lost in their phones that they're missing life. As a loyal iPhone and Apple products user, I was first skeptical at the idea of a new smartphone from Windows. However, the new campaign catches my interest. It's catchy, it's timely, and it's true. 

"There's an insight into what's happening in our culture with phones," says chief creative officer of Microsoft, Gayle Troberman, according AdAge. "[Phones] are starting to dominate our behavior. We're challenging consumers to think about the role phones play in our lives. Maybe they can be designed better to get back to life sometimes." 

Fittingly, one sees very little of Windows Phone 7, or other specific phones for that matter, in the adverts until the very end. Even the name of the product itself seems to recall an age when a phone was simply a phone. This certainly is a dramatic change from Microsoft's virtually unremembered Kin, its first attempt in entering the smartphone market. The ad campaign for the Kin seemed to overtly embrace how connected we are to our phones and to each other, practically urging consumers to make their phones the center of their lives. 

However, this new campaign is entirely different. Instead of trying to keep consumers sucked in, the new Windows Phone 7 appeals to those who want to retake control of their technologically dominated lives. This certainly is a noble attempt at reactive advertising, an attempt by Windows to market their new product in reaction to the current growing trends of other smartphones. In addition to just its campaign, the Windows Phone differs from other smartphones on the market by not adhering to the grid of applications -- a signature of the iPhone and Android. While this could be incredibly risky, I think by highlighting its differences as the core of its marketing strategy, Microsoft may finally achieve their decade long ambition to break into the mobile phone space.