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Pull on your hip boots, it’s a Microsoft “global advertising brand strategy.” There’s not anything new, but it now has a snappy name:
At Advertising Week 2006, Microsoft Corp. will announce the worldwide launch of Microsoft® Digital Advertising Solutions in a move that combines the company’s broad set of global advertising products and services into a unified offering for advertisers. Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions is designed to connect advertisers with their target audiences across such devices as PCs, Xbox® video game systems, Web-enabled mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Joanne Bradford, corporate vice president of global sales and marketing and chief media revenue officer at Microsoft, said Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions is a response to one of advertisers’ key challenges. “As today’s consumers spend more and more time online across various digital devices like mobile phones and video games, advertisers are finding they can no longer reach their entire target audience by advertising on a single medium,” she said. “Microsoft is uniquely positioned because of our extensive global audience, high level of consumer engagement, and engaging ad opportunities across Microsoft’s platform to connect advertisers with a million different audiences of one. We’re addressing the reality of media fragmentation and enabling advertisers to get back to what they do best: creating engaging and creative ads.”
Fair enough, but it would have been better if we had heard about some nifty new tooling that would make it easy to buy ads across all the venues (or some such) to add the spice of novelty to merely re-announcing existing programs with an umbrella moniker. Frankly, this is the kind of announcement you would see from a publishing company hyping the swell advertising opportunities across all their magazines or newspapers.
That feeling is reinforced by Microsoft’s Don Dodge who disdains running ads on websites that lack the Microsoft cachet:
Do you know where your on line advertisements are going? Mongolia, Syria, Pakistan, or other places where you don’t do business? Microsoft today announced Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions , a service that only delivers ads to respected Microsoft sites.
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On-line advertising is very cost effective and trackable if done correctly with top tier sites. When your ads get syndicated out to an advertising network all bets are off. The percentage of invalid clicks on advertising network sites is much higher than on search engines or tier one content sites.
I think I just heard Microsoft decline to compete for the third party publishers that give Google about 40% of their ad revenue. Since Microsoft is way behind Google and Yahoo in demonstrating a third party publishing solution to the market, I suppose they might as well feature it by making an appeal to the carriage trade. But the broader question is whether Microsoft will ever try to attract third party publishers. It looks like Microsoft regards itself as a purely a content provider in the Web advertising business – a sort of glorified AOL or upmarket MySpace – and any aspirations to a broader role have gone by the wayside. Too bad, they might have been a contender.
Microsoft Developing Web’s Largest Advertising Network:
Ad testing begins on Office Live, Windows Live Mail and MSN Spaces.
Microsoft Corp. today announced it has begun testing display advertisements across Microsoft® Office Live, Windows Live™ Mail and MSN® Spaces. The multimarket tests include advertisements from such global companies as Coca-Cola Brazil, JCPenney Co. Inc. and Monster Worldwide Inc. and mark the beginning of providing advertisers with broader access to Microsoft’s valuable online audience. This effort will help generate revenue to provide consumers with a wide array of free and low-cost online services such as Web hosting, e-mail and Web services.
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Coca-Cola Brazil, JCPenney and Monster Worldwide are among the 20 global marketers participating in the initial ad tests. The results of the multiple ad formats being tested will help determine which ad offerings provide the best return on investment for marketers while adding value to the consumer experience.
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Windows Live display ads are currently being tested in MSN Spaces in Australia and Italy, and Windows Live Mail display ads are being tested in various markets across the world including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Office Live display ads are initially being tested in the U.S. and immediately sold out of their available openings for beta advertisers. Tests will continue on these and other Microsoft sites and services throughout 2006, while additional research is underway with approximately 100 advertisers in nine markets to verify advertisers’ needs and best practice advertising solutions for Windows Live.
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In November 2005, Microsoft outlined its Windows Live and Office Live online services vision and highlighted an advertising network in which marketers would be able to create more meaningful connections with customers while providing advertisers with the unique opportunity to connect with a new and highly coveted audience, which includes small-business owners.Microsoft will continue to invest heavily in MSN.com, as well as continue to explore new advertising opportunities on Live.com, OfficeLive.com, Microsoft.com, the Xbox Live® service, Internet Protocol television (IPTV), mobile devices and other Microsoft properties.
I was just complaining the other day that what was missing so far in the “rolling thunder” of “Live” announcements has been the money. After all, it’s hard to do “ad-supported software” without the ads. Now it looks like Microsoft’s new worldwide ad czar, Joanne Bradford, has put together a pilot test of conventional display ads for some of the “Live” services.
That’s OK for a start, but one wonders what took them so long. To paraphrase the popular wisdom about Google, “Live” isn’t in the Web 2.0 business, it’s in the business of selling ads. It’s agreed that you have to have something to get the customers in the door, but accommodating and serving ads should be a key part of every “Live” design and plan.
As for the undetailed claim of “Web’s largest advertising network,” I expect the appropriate definition is “Web’s largest advertising venue,” since I doubt that all the Microsoft properties together have more viewers than all the places on the Web currently showing Google Ads. Which brings to mind that Microsoft also still needs to launch adCenter’s contextual ads on their own and other publishers’ sites. Just selling conventional display ads on your own popular sites doesn’t win the prize.
Catching up with an older item, Zachary Rodgers at ClickZ reports Microsoft Integrates Global Media Sales Under Bradford:
Microsoft has promoted Joanne Bradford to corporate VP of global sales and trade marketing, and chief media revenue officer.
The position has oversight of all Microsoft’s media operations, including MSN, Windows Live, Xbox and the recently announced Web services platforms Office Live and Windows Live. Additionally, she’ll oversee the company’s monetization efforts in IPTV and mobile content.
Previously MSN’s chief media revenue officer, Bradford will work to integrate Microsoft’s global media sales force, which has tended to operate in isolated pockets. MSNBC in particular has been treated as its own world.
Before joining Microsoft, Bradford headed North American ad sales for Business Week. There isn’t yet a Microsoft biography page, but here’s an older one at iMedia Connection.
Kris Oser at AdAge:
The new division signals Microsoft’s seriousness in carrying out a strategy Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced last fall for the company to stake its future on Internet advertising.
“This is a significant push for us,” Ms. Bradford said. “We are committed to building one Microsoft sales force for Microsoft’s products.”
This sounds more or less like what one would expect if Microsoft is really taking ad-supported software seriously, but Mike Shields at Media Week sounds an off note:
Bradford’s promotion would seem to signal that Microsoft’s adCenter technology, which is said to offer advanced targeting and automation for a variety of Web based forms of advertising, will soon be adopted and managed across all Microsoft properties.
Theoretically, this would allow online ad buyers the means to purchase ads on multiple Microsoft properties through one central application.
In fact, according to Microsoft officials, in her new role, Bradford will be focused on bringing advertising to a more prominent position within Microsoft by developing new products and improving sales operations. She will also be working to globally integrate the company’s sales force.
That seems like “more of the same, only better organized” which while being good old traditional management-speak, isn’t likely to cut it in Internet ads.
